


Turtles and Lime Lemonade

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst & Sadness ayyyy, Buddy!Natasha, F/M, Friendly!Pepper, Ignorant!Coulson, Minor Character Death, More Tags to be added as I go, Other, Sadness, Tony Stark/Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, but it's mostly happy I swear, first fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 33,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4342409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out Tony actually has a daughter which turns up now that her mother has died. No one is prepared for this and everyone has to rearrange their lives.<br/>But suddenly, everything turns upside down and within a few weeks, nothing and no one is the same anymore. They all have to overthink and reconsider, because nothing is as it seems.<br/>---------------<br/>Or basically, the thing in which Tony has a daughter which no one knew existed who jumps in and mixes up the Avengers squad a bit. Throughout all that, she becomes a target and has to stand on her own eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gray

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!  
> This is my first fic on AO3 and also my first fic ever. It'd be lovely if you left some feedback down in the comments!
> 
> And also note that english is neither my nor my dear proof reader's first language. So I apologize for any weird spelling/ vocabulary/ word order. If you notice anything, feel free to tell me in the comments :)
> 
> Now go on and read this piece of fiction!

The glass of the plane window was cold against the skin of her cheek. She just silently stared at the elbow of the man that sat in front of her, like she had been for what feels like the past hour. She didn't want to think at the moment, no nothing, no anything. Fragments of senseless thoughts kept coming, things she didn't want to occupy her mind with.

She had been lucky to get a window place in this monster of a jet. It was way too warm, the air was bad and sticky, reeking of too many people, sweat, food and old clothes. She was sweating with her thighs and back against the old leather of the seat, whilst the bag on her lap did not make anything better, but that was the last that would matter right now.

She began reading the tag on her bag over and over again. Name: Ms. Ella Dunnan. This all reminded her too much of her mother. That name. _Mind, could you please just shut up?_ Flight No. 0051. Dallas to New York. Starts at 5:30 a.m., arrives at 10:50 on 15th July. Second Class. Seat 43B. Again. Name: Ella Dunnan... recalling that the name 'Dunnan' would probably be taken from her in the next few days made her stiffen in her seat, trying not be too obvious with holding back the tears that threatened to well up. Sure, the name sounded a bit stupid, but it was more than just a name to her at the moment. It was more of a remainder of her mother, one of the few things she had left.

With shaking hands, she practically ripped open her bag to take out some sleeping meds. It was about seven a.m. And yes, she intended on getting some sleep. Better that way, she wouldn't have to think when she was asleep. Plus, she wouldn't be very likely to dream in her meds-induced sleep. She took a whole pill with a sip of water from her cheap refilled plastic bottle and leant back into the seat. Huddling her bag close to herself to avoid having it stolen or being pocket-lifted, she waited for the sleep to come.

Next thing she knew was a gentle hand on her right arm, lightly shaking her. She didn't open her eyes immediately, but when she heard the noise swell in the plane, she decided to take a look at what's going on. Next to her sat a young man, let him be at his late twenties, nice face, brown hair, average.

“Excuse me?” he said.

She blinked at him for a moment and then straightened up in her seat.

“We're landing now, so we're supposed to fasten the seat belts...” he informed her.

“Kay, thanks.” she mumbled with a tired smile and did as she was told.

She noticed that the air had gotten even worse in the time she had been sleeping – it felt like the air just clung to one's skin and face and like it was becoming impossible to breathe freely.  
There was quite a, if not a bit too rough impact when the plane landed, but otherwise, everything went smoothly. Everyone applauded at the landing. She didn't know what was going on at first because it had been her first flight, but the guy next to her from previously told her that he flew a lot and that one would do the applauding stuff to honour the pilot. She gave him a tired smile. Whatever.

Getting up, she grabbed her bag and headed towards the exit with the others, towards the fresh air. When she stepped outside on the first step of the staircase, she took a deep breath. Finally some (more or less) fresh air. A light breeze played with the little strands of hair that had escaped from the braid she had gotten her hair into in the morning with quite some effort. She had much, thick and curly hair. Without a bun or braid, her hair looked like a big fuzzy, curly dark brown mop of hair.

The second the saw the giant 'Welcome to New York!' banner at the entrace of the airport building, her stomach sacked to her knees again. When she had stepped out of the plane, there had been a nice breeze, but since it was July the sun burnt down mercilessly. Why did she have to wear jeans and a hoodie again? Right. For no apparent reason.

The 100-metre-walk towards the building felt like a sahara trip, but luckily the building had AC, so she sighed happily when a cool wave of conditioned air hit her face. Following the others from her flight, she grabbed her other bag at the drop-off and walked toward the exit...

Wait. She had been lucky to be able to follow the others so far, but now the others were gone. She stood alone in that giant hall full of people and began to panic slightly. Where was that freaking exit thing?

Looking around, she bit her lower lip. When she saw no signs of any sort, she decided to ask a staff member. Good idea really, that one, she thought to herself. The friendly woman of the airport staff guided her towards the hall where the people that picked other people off usually waited. She had seen this in movies before – the people waiting for their people held up signs with the names of the people they were waiting for. Her name was nowhere to be seen when she first entered the hall, and when she stood to read all the signs, she was being pushed forwards by the incoming people. She made her way towards a wall facing the waiting people, leaned her bigger bag against the wall and sat on top of it.

She pulled out the print-out of the e-mail that that woman had sent her – what was her name again? Ms Potts... Pepper Potts. Strange name, she thought. She carefully read the e-mail again. When she had read it, she wasn't any wiser since it was so loud that she couldn't concentrate onto a single word. She had read the text without actually reading it. She groaned, rubbing her face and started to read it again. There was a taxi driver that was supposed to pick her up at... ugh. She looked at the big clock hanging on the opposite wall. That was in twenty minutes.

She decided to to degrade herself by sitting on the ground and so she stood up, took her bags between her legs and leant against the wall, arms crossed. Sure, the position was really awkward, but better than nothing. Closing her eyes, she tried to get some rest which turned out to be impossible as long as so many people were around.

After ten minutes or so, (but what had felt like an eternity) the hall had cleared up a bit and there were only people here and there walking around, sitting or just standing there, the latter two most probably waiting. Her knees hurt by now and her feet felt like they were on fire, and she let herself plop down onto the bigger bag out of pure exhaustion. Now finding it easier to shut down because of the decreased amount of people, she closed her eyes again and leant against the wall.

The second she was about to drift off into some kind of hazy half-awake state, someone stood in front of her and positively startled her when same someone said  
:  
“Excuse me?”. She jumped and almost cursed since had been about to finally get some kind of rest. She opened her eyes by new and looked at the person in front of her.  
It was a man of average height and size with a blue uniform and cap, both with occasional yellow lines on them.

“I am highly sorry for waking you, Miss, but may I ask you whether you are Ella Dunnan or if you know about her whereabouts?” he said.  
She stood up and straightened her clothes.  
“N- No problem sir. That's me.” she said.  
“I was sent by Ms. Potts to pick you up. Would you please follow me?” he asked.  
“Yes, of course.” she half-mumbled and picked up her stuff, then following the man to his Taxi.


	2. New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now going on to the second chapter!
> 
> Sadly, it's only thinking, blabbering and stuff, but I promise at least Pepper is going to be in the next chapter! >^

The ride was most probably going to be a longer one, so she looked out the window and began to think again. She had been growing up only with her mother, and as a single child. Her mom had never told her anything about her father or any siblings, and she had known better than to ask.

Half a year after she had turned sixteen and found a job to support her mother, said mother died. Her death did by far not come out of the blue, yet it made her fall into a giant hole. The whole world had rendered grey since then, since May. Since neither her mother or she herself were able to get a job of kinds, the two of them had lived in poverty.

In her testament, everything her mother had was said to belong to her. It was not much, only some furniture and stuffs of kinds, nothing special. Before her death, her mother had written a personal letter to her, and only to her. In the letter she had told her daughter the name of her father – the person that had always seemed to miss and which they never talked about.

She felt bitter. When she had first read the name, she thought of it as a macabre joke. But why should her mother joke in her last words to her? She certainly did not have that kind of black humour. Ella did not fancy that kind of life she would have with _him_ as her legal guardian, but she had no choice. Unless she turned eighteen, there was no way to do _shit_ about it.

Spoken of man... was Tony Stark. The Iron Man. This was so ridiculous. She found herself snickering to herself, and she didn't know why she should laugh right now. Maybe it was out of desperation? She had expected them to put her in an orphanage, get her adopted, whatever. But law was like this, and how much both of them would hate it, he would somehow have to deal with her at any cost.

But what scared her most at the moment was the actual encounter. What was she going to say? Say 'Hi' and then just look at Tony like some dumbstruck? She fully expected him to just kick her out the second she would open her mouth. Sure, she knew the Iron Man the media showed, and she _liked_ the Iron Man the media showed, but this while thing was just about... laughable.

She still hoped that this all was just a big joke, that she could live with her mother like when she had been six or seven and they had played in that park and... No. Was not going to happen. Her mother had died in her arms, that afternoon, she had seen her eyes close, had felt her hands and face get cold...

“Miss...?”. The voice of the taxi driver startled her and made her snap out of her thoughts immediately. She sat up extremely straight until her back hurt. It was only now that she noticed the hot wet that had begun to slide down her face.

“Is everything alright?” the driver asked carefully. She quickly wiped the tears away with her sleeves and tried to make herself look alright.

“I'm okay. Thank you.” she replied with a surprisingly steady voice, still trying to stern out her expression again.

They both fell into silence again. God, this was embarrassing.

She didn't want all this. _If_ she got to live with Tony Stark, she totally expected things do go downhill. She was about a hundred percent sure that he wouldn't have even a hint of some time for her, let alone make any personal bonds or some sappy stuff to her. He was an occupied man, he had work to get done, he would be out on missions, not to mention that he was being referred as a womanizer, alcoholic, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. How should he have time for a daughter then, a _daughter_ that came out of the nothing on top?

She had never even once written to him, let alone talked to him, not even on the phone or via Skype or something. Meeting a person that you've never talked to, who is supposed to be your legal guardian and who was a superhero on top. She didn't even know if she would be able to deal with all the public attention she would be likely to get.

_Well, let's not get our expectations too high, will we?_ She thought to herself. Expect nothing. Then everything will be just fine.

Suddenly, her phone began to vibrate in her bag. It was a really old flip phone, but it did the job just fine. She roughly pried it out and as she flipped it open, she saw it was Ms. Potts. What would she possibly...?

She picked up and said: “Hello, Dunnan here?”.

“Good evening, Ms. Dunnan. I just want to inform you that Mr. Stark will not be in until late night or the early morning hours. He had to attend a meeting unexpectedly. He will not be there when you arrive. I hope you don't consider that a problem.” the woman said with a warm voice.

“Um... I- I don't think that's a problem, I will wait then, I think.”

“You might also take a rest in the guest's room until then or stay overnight and meet him in the morning.”

“No, that's not necessary, I don't want to cause circumstances to you. Thank you.”

“Thank you for your comprehension. I will welcome you at the tower then. Goodbye!”

“Goodbye...”, but the woman's voice was already gone.

He would not be in. She would be there before him. This would only lead to really awkward situations...

Most of the remaining time, she stared out of the window at the streets, passing cars. She watched the changing, colourful range of lights, the way the buildings gradually got bigger, higher, more expensive. The driver turned on the radio at some point, after having asked if that would be okay. All the time along, she tried not to think about what would await her in the tower.

She noticed that she had happened to fall asleep at some point when the taxi pulled into a parking lot and stopped. The sun had already begun to set, but the streets were still broadly lit. She made herself wake up faster by lightly slapping her cheeks for not making a bad first impression. As soon as she opened the door on her side, the driver came to her side and helped her out. He helped her with her bags and led her into the building. The Avengers tower, clearly visible in New York's skyline at all times, and a monument by itself.  
The door opened automatically for the two and when they entered the lobby, Ella couldn't help it but stop and just stare. Never before in her life she had been to such a luxurious and spacious building. This whole lobby was as big as the whole flat she had lived in with her mother for the past years. Inside, there was a single woman on a desk who had to be some kind of secretary. She nodded at Ella and the taxi driver and the driver brought her towards an elevator. He pressed a button, the doors opened and he motioned for her to go inside, handing her her bag. When she gave him a confused look, he just said:

“Ms. Potts will await you up on the 8th floor. I will not follow you up.”

“Um... okay, thank you so far.”

“Goodbye. Have a nice evening.”

“G'bye.”

With that last greet, the doors of the elevator closed and Ella pressed the button to the floor the taxi driver had told her. Almost completely silent, the elevator began to move upwards with a decent speed. When it slowed down and stopped again after a few seconds, her heart began to beat hard against her ribcage in anticipation. Then, the doors slid aside.


	3. Unfamiliar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a massive upload because I'm unable to update frequently like every other normal person.  
> Thanks to my lovely proof-reader again for looking this over and so on <3  
> Now have fun!

What she saw next was not to be compared with anything she had seen ever before.

 

There was another wide lobby with black shiny stone tiles on the floor and expensive leather furniture, everything looked smooth and clean... She dared to take a step inside, and then another.

 

Just when she was about to look closer, she heard a pair of high-heeled shoes approach her. Those shoes belonged to a blonde woman who came into sight by now.

 

This had to be Ms. Potts. She was rather beautiful, to be honest. She gave Ella a heartwarming smile and extended a hand towards the brunette girl.

 

“I'm Ms. Potts. We've been talking already.” she introduced herself.

 

Her handshake was warm and firm, but not uncomfortable so.

 

“Yeah, I know. Um...” she trailed off. What a  _ genius _ answer, she thought to herself. Well.

 

“We're gonna sit down for now, alright?” Ms. Potts offered, and Ella replied, more self-confident this time:

“Yeah, sure.”. Better.

 

The woman led her towards a group of various pieces of sitting furniture and Ella couldn't help but stare again. The woman caught her looking at everything with awe and interrupted her.

 

“Spacious, isn't it? You may put down your bag by the sofa there. Please take a seat, I will just get us some drinks. What do you want?”

 

“Y- Yes, uh, some water please, thank you.”

 

Ella slowly walked towards the group of cuddly-looking seats and sofas. She awkwardly looked behind her if her old trainers did leave any dirt one the shiny tiles. She quietly sighed in relief when she saw that the tiles were still as shiny as before.

 

She put her bags next to the nearest sofa and carefully sat on it like it was an animal that had to be handled with care to not make it freak out and throw you off. She shuffled to the very left, uncomfortably sitting on the front edge. She didn't know what to do with her hands, so she just stuffed them in between her knees. As she let her gaze wander around further, she felt more and more misplaced, by the time horribly so.

 

After a while, she carefully let the fingertips of her right hand glide over the soft and smooth white leather of the furniture she sat on. It felt wonderful, at least in comparison to the old, greasy, used sofa she had had at home. She quickly flinched back as if she burnt herself when she couldn't remember when the hand had escaped from beteen her knees.

 

Ms. Potts came back with two crystal glasses of water. Those looked really expensive, and Ella took the one handed to her carefully. She sipped on it, eyes fixed on the ground of the glass. She cautiously placed it on the glass table in front of her to not make too much noise. Her gaze wandered back to the blonde woman. Said woman still held her glass in her lap with one hand, the other hand wandering over the top edge.

 

Ella decided to break the uncomfortable silence.

 

“Um... Ms. Potts, I don't want to overly bother you, if you still have work to do or something, I might as well...” she trailed off, making indefinite waves with one hand and then smiled uncomfortably.

 

“Dear, just call me Pepper. I thought we could chat a little, just for a few minutes. I think I have that much time.”. She smiled her friendly smile again. When Ella didn't reply immediately, she quickly added:

 

“If you're tired, I understand that. You might as well get some sleep first.”

 

“Thank you, I'm fine. Um...” Ella trailed off again.

 

This situation made her palms get cold and sweaty and her face felt like it was on fire. Ms. Potts, no,  _ Pepper _ was so kind and yet this whole thing felt terribly wrong to Ella. She stiffly shifted on the sofa, this way of sitting was getting hard to keep up. She spoke up.

 

“Does Mr. Stark know that I'm... you know...?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low and level.

 

“Yes, of course, since about two weeks. Of course, this came totally unforeseen to everyone involved and it's clear that nothing is going to be easy and... well. This is not the optimum for anyone, I think we should just try to arrange things the best way possible. As you may know, there is nothing to be done until you're eighteen via law, so...”

 

“Yeah, I kind of... figured.”. A slight pause came up.

Pepper broke it.

 

“So you live... or rather _lived_ in Fort Worth... have you ever been to New York before?”

 

“Well, no, I've never been out of Texas. Farthest trip I ever made was to Wichita Falls with my mother when I was twelve. It was exciting, we went to the park and we played there and stuff.”

 

“I suppose you still attend school? Which grade are you currently in?”

 

“I, um... in fact will finish school by christmas.”

 

“How come? Why is there only half a year left?”

 

“I will study at home over the next weeks and then attend the finals when the others attend the classes I study by myself. That's kind of an exception that is being made for some people who are able to finish school faster. I can get a scholarship for college better that way and I'll don't have to sit out another whole boring year.”. She smiled.

 

“Impressive.” Pepper commented. “Then you will finish school quite young.”

 

“Yes, sort of. I also thought of studying abroad instead, I'll need a scholarship for that as well.”. The brunette took another sip of water. There stretched a pause between them again.

 

“Isn't this the Avengers tower? I mean... well, aren't the Avengers supposed to live here?” Ella asked after wondering about that question for a moment.

 

“Sadly, they're all on missions at the moment.”

 

“Ah...”

 

Ella looked around, searching for a clock. A digital surface on a wall told her that it was around half past eight. She felt exhausted, but not exactly tired.

 

All of sudden, a male voice came out of the nowhere. Ella jumped hard and shrieked lightly. She didn't understand what it said due to the shock. She looked around wildly, but no one had entered the room.

 

“That's Jarvis. He's Tony's AI. That's some kind of a program.” Pepper explained chuckling.

 

Ella's heart still hammered against her ribs and she still felt a bit wobbly because of the adrenalin. She brought a hand to her heart, mumbling “Gosh...” and had to grin herself. She was getting the feeling that she more or less had been living under a rock until now.

 

“Ms. Potts, Mr. Hogan is calling.” the voice, namely _Jarvis_ repeated.

 

“Put him through to my mobile.” she said to the voice.

 

“Excuse me for a minute, please.” the blonde smiled and then disappeared around the corner with the digital surface.

 

Ella began to fiddle with the hem of her sleeve. She considered standing up and walking around for a moment but then dismissed the idea, not wanting to look like a stalker or like she would stick her nose in foreign affairs. She probably wouldn't get far with her wobbly knees. Pepper remained gone for a good few minutes that felt like an eternity. Ella could only hear Pepper's muffled voice through the wall, though she could not understand any words.

 

When she came back, she only crossed the room towards an elevator, telling Ella that she sadly had to go back to work for a while and that Ella could always address Jarvis if she needed anything. Ella thanked her and watched her disappearing between the closing elevator doors out of the corner of her eye. She sat back on the couch a bit, but without leaning back. She began to rummage through her bag to see if she found something she could occupy her mind with. She did not plan on staring holes in the wall until the late evening.

 

She found her book. She flipped it open where she had put a little piece of paper in between the pages. She read one sentence. Didn't understand it. Read it again. Still no sense in it. She shut the book and dropped it back into her bag. She was too hibbly and nervous at the moment to concentrate on _anything_ at all.

 

Her thoughts began to wander again and a stupid but yet funny idea appeared to her: Tony Stark was rich, obviously. This tower was more than luxurious, and in movies with rich people and their houses, they would often clap their hands to shut the light on or off. The idea was really stupid and infantile, but since Pepper was gone now, she thought it would be worth a try.

 

She sat up straight and clapped her hands twice. She had been looking at the ceiling, but nothing happened. The light stayed the same. She felt the blood run to her face, what if anyone had heard her? She frowned a bit, but then she noticed a blue shimmer on the (thing she had originally thought of to be a) glass table that hadn't been there before...

 

_Don't tell me this thing is a giant transparent touchscreen,_ she thought.

 

She tapped the surface once. A window with a dial and 'Please enter code' appeared on it.

 

_This thing_ is _a giant transparent touchscreen._ This tower was full of surprises.

 

She spent the following two hours just sitting there, attempting to snooze a bit, staring at walls or looking around.

 

Around nine, Ella heard the elevator approaching again. According to the time, it could be either Pepper or Tony. If it was Tony, the meeting probably didn't take all too long. She quickly got up, smoothing over her clothes. The door opened. Her heart was in her throat now and her stomach near her knees. Now she could see them – it was Tony Stark himself, and another man following suit by his side. Where was Pepper? Ella just stood there horribly dumbstruck, not knowing what to say.

 

_Okay,_ she told herself,  _chill yourself. This is just some random stranger and you will say Hi now. He's not your biological father, he's not rich, he's not a superhero. Just a random dude..._

 

Straightening up again, she took a few steps towards the approaching men and now stood freely in the room. He stopped in front of her, quickly looking her up and down and then extended a hand. She took it, hoping he didn't notice her shaky cold and sweaty palms. His hands were dry and warm and he wore a bright smile. He nodded at her,

 

“It's a pleasure to meet you.”, obviously knowing who she was.

 

“Yeah, l-likewise.” she stuttered.

 

She noticed that his eyes were the same familiar cool green as her own.

 

The doors of the elevator opened again and the already slightly familiar clacking of Pepper's heels came closer. Ella's hand fell back to her side and she took a small step backwards.

 

“Hey, Tony!” Pepper greeted him and gave him a quick kiss when she reached him.

 

“Hey, Happy.” she said, now addressing the other man.

 

“Hey, Pepper.” he said. He also gave Ella a quick firm handshake and introduced himself:

 

“Happy Hogan, I'm the head of security.”

 

“Ella Dunnan.”

 

“I see you already got to know each other?” Pepper asked the three of them equally. Ella got the feeling that Pepper was acting like some kind of mediator.

 

“Kind of.” Tony said.

 

Ella coughed slightly. Happy turned towards the door again, asking Pepper:

 

“I'm gonna go then, alright?”

 

Pepper nodded and smiled, “'Later!”.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As promised, here was Pepper!


	4. Jarvis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is part two of my massive upload.  
> Tony's gonny be there by now. Has taken me way too long.  
> Don't forget to comment and give kudos, becuase that's what uplifts the writer's soul ;)

 When the door closed behind Happy, the uncomfortable tension between the two brunettes only raised. Ella decided to break it.

 

“Erm, you know this is kind of awkward, and you don't need to take me in or something, this is just some sort of makeshift solution for the next two years, so... I don't really know...”

As she spoke, she only felt more and more misplaced with herself and her speech. In the end she wished that she hadn't spoken up in the first place.

 

Tony himself seemed to have about thirty times more self-confidence plus coolness & casualty bonus.

 

“Oh, no problem. Look it's a bit late, everyone involved is tired, so what about us all going to bed and have the whole getting-to-know-each-other-thing tomorrow? I'm not up for this right now. You can sleep in the guest's room for now. Pepper, can you just show her the guest's... room?”

 

Pepper was obviously anything but satisfied with that, but she saw his point in everyone being tired and hid it. She motioned for Ella to take her stuff . She told Tony in passing by to also go to bed himself. He huffed lightly before turning around and swiftly heading to the elevator.

 

Pepper waited with Ella for the elevator to return and then stepped in.

 

The blonde took one of her bags and guided her towards the guest room. It was spacious, though by far not as big as the lobby.

 

“You can sleep here for the night, you might use the shower and towels and so on. We'll see further tomorrow. Again, if you need anything, call Jarvis please. You can sleep late, rest as much as you want to. Um...”

 

She looked around like she tried to recall if she forgot anything, but then smiled wider and said:

 

“Yeah. Any questions?”

 

“Er... no, not really.”

 

“Then see you tomorrow, sleep well and good night!” she saw herself off and turned around to close the door.

 

“You too, goodnight!” the girl lightly called after her.

 

After having taken a quick shower, Ella laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. Her whole life had been levered and turned upside down in practically just a single day. She hoped for the best and decided not to think about it too much, trying to convince herself somehow that things were totally going to be alright, one way or the other.

 

When she woke up, her first thought was: _When has my bed gotten so soft and squishy?_ , but then she remembered where she was, and _why_ she was here. Despite still being in her horrible morning haze like always, her eyes already threatened to water up again.

 

 _No, not being a whiny baby today. Get yourself together, man_ she told herself, harshly rubbing her eyes. She padded to the bathroom, staring at her bed-haired, half-asleep self in the mirror and sighing heavily. Cold water? _Nah._

 

She opened the braid she hadn't opened the previous evening, part because she had simply forgotten, part because her bed hair when she slept with open hair was near untameable.

 

Dressing in some random trousers and hoodie she found in her bag, she eventually remembered to check her insulin level.

 

Considering she would eat breakfast in the next quarter hour, she injected herself with some. Her pancreas had almost completely given up on her some years ago after an accident, type 1 diabetes being the result. She was also allergic to nuts and a few artificial sweeteners, just as if life had shouted “Well, fuck you!” at her when the bodies had been given out. But hey, she had to deal with it, there was considerably little to be done.

 

Having made herself and especially her hair at least to the average presentable, she stepped out the door to search Pepper or the kitchen, probably both. She had tied her hair in some kind of mix between braid and topknot, but that held it together just fine. When she found no clock at first sight, she thought it might finally be the time to call Jarvis.

 

“Um...Jarvis?” she tried, excited if he would reply.

 

“Yes Miss Dunnan, what can I do for you?” the voice came back from seemingly everywhere. Despite having been prepared this time, she flinched.

 

“What time is it?”

 

“It's nine twenty-two a.m., ma'am.”

 

She let out a breath and her face literally read 'whoops, slept a _bit_ too long'.

 

“Well, do you know if Pepper is still there?”

 

“Ms. Potts has already left the house for a business meeting about two hours ago. Shall I call out for Mr. Stark instead?”

 

“No, no, don't do that. Where is he?”

 

“In the kitchen, at least at the moment. I suggest you to get him before he goes back to his workshop.”

 

“And... where is the kitchen?”

 

“Go to the elevator please, I will lead you there.”

 

“Okay, thank you...”

 

“Anytime again, miss.”

 

She walked down the hallway again, into the elevator and waited for Jarvis to jump to action. When she entered the kitchen, Tony stood behind the counter, pouring milk into a cup of coffee. He looked up for a second when she entered.

 

“Good morning.” she said.

 

“Mornin'.” he replied.

 

She did a few uncomfortable, careful steps into the room and then around the counter from the left.

“Um... d'you have any muesli or something?”

 

He turned around, taking a good few sips from his mug, swallowing and then pointing to a cupboard behind him.

 

“Take what you want, but don't spill it. That shit is Cap's, and it's expensive.”

 

She nodded, “thanks.” and opened the cupboard.

 

“Bowls are under the counter on the right, spoons above and milk's right here.” he said, tapping the bottle next to him once.

 

She took out a glass container of the muesli available and prepared some of it with milk. She picked it up along with a glass of orange juice he had pushed towards her on the counter wordlessly, inviting her to follow him in the process.

 

They entered a nicely lit living room, just as spacious as the other rooms had been. When he settled down on a couch and invited her over, she hesitated in the doorstep and asked:

 

“Um... Jarvis told me you've got work to do? Don't you have to...” she trailed off, pulling her shoulders up and gesticulating at nowhere particular behind her.

 

“He told you I'll go down to the workshop.”

 

“How did you...?”

 

“He's _my_ AI, don't forget that.”

 

 _Ugh._ _Mental note to self: don't tell Jarvis stuff you wouldn't tell Tony, because he_ will _find out._

 

“Now come sit down, we'll have a talk.”

 

“Okay...”

 

She shuffled towards the opposite seat and carefully sat down slowly to avoid spilling milk. She held the bowl on her lap and began to dip all the muesli floating on the surface under.

 

She felt more nervous by every second that passed and her hands began to sweat and shake again. She clutched the spoon and the bowl like her life depended on it, but her shaking traced onto the spoon and made little waves appear in the milk.

 

She pulled the spoon out of the milk, placed her and on her knee and looked at him. He had his coffee along with three complete and one half-eaten sandwiches, also looking at her over the edge of his mug. He sat it down on the glass table between them and looked at her.

 

“You're nervous as fuck.”

 

“Well, true.”

 

“You're trembling.”

 

She took a shaking breath, diverting her gaze to her bowl again.

 

“I know.” she got out, quieter this time.

 

A slight pause followed.

 

“Ella, look at me.”

 

She did, but she slightly flinched at the sound of her name out of his mouth.

 

“Let me get this straight. Yesterday you said that this is some kind of makeshift thing and only for the next two years and that I don't have to do anything really, am I right?”

 

“Yeah, kind of, yes.”

 

“I understand if you're nervous, or if you don't know how this is gonna work. I don't even know myself. As you may know I'm working and occupied a lot and I may not always have time for you, and look, I'm sorry.”

 

She had let her eyes wander down again throughout his speech, but now her head snapped up in surprise. She stared at him, half awaiting that he was starting to chuckle and say something like 'nah, I'm not, little joke.', but he didn't. His face remained dead serious. What was this?

 

“What? I'm serious.” he said after a while of her just staring at him blankly.

 

She eventually got her jaw to work:

 

“Yeah... okay”

 

“We barely know each other and you might find this awkward, but just listen and take it in for the moment, okay?”

 

She nodded.

 

“I know I'm far from a good and caring parent, and I'm inexperienced, but let's try to have an at least as normal relationship as it will get.”

 

She spoke up after having halfway regained some composure.

 

“I'm actually just a random girl you never knew of that claims to... well, to be your daughter all out of the blue. I really don't expect you to care.”

 

He looked at her and a pause stretched between them. She sat so straight that her back hurt and he was leant forwards, elbows resting on his knees. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes and then took an audible breath.

 

“I supposed we might at least try. This doesn't have to be two years of you randomly living on your own for you.”

 

“You don't have to care. I think I'm quite autonomous.”

 

“Then let me.”

 

Her lower lip trembled, so she bit it. _No emotional outlets here._

 

Where did this come from all of sudden? He wasn't known as an overly caring personality.

 

“How come?” she asked.

 

“If I have a daughter, I might as well care, don't you think? Have some self-confidence.” he said and sat up slightly, taking a sip from his coffee as if to strengthen his argument.

 

“You sure I'm no unnecessary burden?”

 

“Please, shut up for a minute. I thought about this for quite a while. If you don't want to accept my personal reasons, then what about me having to care to keep up my face towards the media? Unless you never want to take a step outside again, I should at least show some interest in you, don't you think?”

 

She remained silent. She didn't know what to think or to say, her mind had shut down. The bitter taste of guilt shot to her mouth, though she could not tell where it came from.

 

“If you don't want a parent, that's okay. You can just have a friend instead, whatever floats your boat.”

 

She nodded slowly.

 

“This is not easy to either of us. Don't make it unnecessarily difficult.”

 

She nodded again.

 

“Yeah.” she said, her voice just above a whisper, and finally:

 

“Alright. Thank you.”.

 

“Wasn't all that difficult, was it?” he asked.

 

She only hummed in reply, not sitting as painfully straight anymore.

 

“Then let me pay you back one day.” she told him in a stern voice.

 

“I'm sure you will either way.” he stated, smiling and began to eat one of his sandwiches.

 

Ella began eating her muesli as well and noticed that her hands were still by now. She smiled to herself. They both knew they had a lot of work still ahead, but now there was a good base to start off from. It somehow made her happy that she didn't have to leave her parent's house one day and look back to a time of loneliness and a childhood in vain. She was happy that Tony Stark had told her that he would be there for her.

And it meant the whole world to her.

 

About halfway through their meal, Tony spoke up again.

 

“You'll have to give a press conference.”

 

She needed a moment to process what he said, and then she just mumbled:

 

“Shit.”

 

“Pepper, Happy and Natasha and me will be there as well, you don't have to do it alone.”

 

“I'm sorry, but I'm already near blacking out when I speak to twenty people, without cameras.”

 

“C'mon, you can do it. It will be me doing it and you sitting next to me and talk a bit.”

 

“I wouldn't even know what to say.”

 

“It won't be before next week. The publicity will have to notice you first, so you still have lots of time to get your shit straight again.”

 

“Okay, but still...”

 

“Now come on, get yourself together. Technically, you're the daughter of the Iron Man. I think a press conference is possible for you.”

 

“Oh, thank you.”

 

She smirked and ate up.

 

It only appeared later to her, when Tony had retired to his workshop and allowed her to walk around on a few floors and inspect everything, that he had said that Natasha would be there at the press conference. Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> (Emotional distress, FRICK YASS!)


	5. Transparent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 of da massive upload   
> This is a bit short, but heh I'm lazy. I felt like it was a good place to stop.

 She walked through the floors, from the bottom to the top and into every room. Tony had banned her from the basement, the labs, his workshop and any private quarters, but still.

 

Opening a new door would be like opening a treasure chest every single time by new. She had grown up in a little two-room flat where everything had been narrow and small and the sunlight had only gotten through the dirty windows for about four hours each day.

 

In the Tower, the rooms were spacious, wide, if not giant in comparison to what she had been used to so far. It had happened a few times that when she had stood in the middle of the (instead of herself) otherwise empty lobby and looked up at the ceiling, it felt like the floor tilted and the room spun.

 

Every single room was bright and the morning sun fell in softly though the clean windows. Every single piece of glass in this building was squeaky clean, and it had happened to her more than once that she had simply walked into a glass door, or glass wall because she hadn't seen it. The first time it happened, she cursed loudly, but as well as all the other times, she quickly looked around to make sure no one had seen her being stupid.

 

The few floors turned out to be even bigger than she had thought at first. When she had already lost her way once, she decided to find a bigger window to watch the skyline. First, she went back to the kitchen to find some fruit she could eat, but she didn't come too far due to Jarvis speaking up when she was halfway through the floor.

 

“Miss Dunnan, Agent Coulson is coming up.” the computer voice informed her.

 

Ella spun around and walked swiftly to the lobby. She was a little proud of herself that she could find her way back that quickly. The door opened and a man came in, all with suit and tie. From what she could see, he was about as tall as she was, which was not very much really. His facial features were sharp, yet not unfriendly and he looked her up and down before giving her a firm handshake and introducing himself vaguely:

 

“Good morning, Miss. I'm Agent Coulson.”

 

He clearly was in a rush, for he continued vice versa.

 

“I know Mr. Stark is in, so please excuse me now.”

 

He walked towards the next room and disappeared around the corner. He was probably going to Tony's workshop which Ella had never dared to visit that far.

 

She only mumbled “Okay...” after him, but she was sure he hadn't heard her anymore. She was about sure that Tony had noticed him the second he had come in as well, but hadn't wanted to come up, for whatever reason. The Agent hadn't let her come to speak, and she just decided to let the matter fall. She continued her way to the kitchen to obtain some fruit.

 

“Jarvis, why have you told me to get the Agent? He could've done everything on his own as well.”

 

“I did not tell you to get him, I only informed you that he was coming up.”

 

She sighed heavily. Sassy. This AI system clearly was Tony's.

 

About ten minutes later, both Tony and the Agent came out of the elevator. She decided not to bother since the latter one had practically ignored her previously.

 

“Ella?” Tony called out for her. What was that now?

 

“Um... yes?” she called back.

 

“Come here.” he said in return. Sighing, she got up from her seat and walked into the lobby where she supposed them to be.

 

Tony awaited her together with the Agent.

 

“What is it?” she asked when she stopped in front of them.

 

“Meet Agent Coulson, Agent of SHIELD.” he said with a both festive and sarcastic undertone.

 

“We've met already.” Coulson briskly said. He turned to Tony.

 

“You seem to forget that SHIELD technically doesn't exist” he mumbled to him.

 

“Do I want to know who and what SHIELD is?” Ella interfered.

 

“No, you don't.” Coulson coldly said when she had only eventually finished her question.

 

“Ah. I see.”

 

“Agent, this is my daughter Ella.” Tony said a bit louder than necessary.

 

Silence. Ella smiled a bit dumbly and looked at the two.

 

“How come you suddenly have children?” the Agent asked after a few seconds.

 

“Well, no one knew.”

 

“How come this doesn't really come unforeseen?”

 

Tony shot him a glare.

 

The other man took a step towards the girl to introduce himself properly again.

 

“Ella Dunnan. Nice to meet you properly now.”

 

“Agent Coulson of SHIELD. Better hope you won't get involved with me or SHIELD.”

 

“Yeah, thanks. I'll make a point of that.”

 

This man had managed to completely turn her positive interest off him in just two sentences or so. Had probably been his intention anyway.

 

He turned to Tony again.

 

“Don't forget your job.”

 

“Of course Coulson. I'd ride my furry rainbow pony to the end of the world for you anytime.”

 

“I know.”

 

With that he turned around and disappeared through the door again. Tony turned around and walked a short distance into the room, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

“Have you ever been to New York before?” he asked all of sudden.

 

“What? Uh... no, I've never been out of Texas.”

 

“You want to see something cool?”

 

“Yeah...?”

 

He walked further into the room and when he arrived at the opposite wall, he made an arm movement towards the wall and said “Jarvis, open up.”

 

The wall turned out to be a giant, full-height window front. Ella followed him suit. The blinds opened automatically and revealed a breathtaking view over Manhattan and it's Skyline and the river.

 

Ella had only seen the skyline on pictures, but this was completely different. Having it right in front of you, looking hundreds of metres down onto the busy streets with all their lights and many movements and...

 

It was great.

 

“Nice view, isn't it?” Tony asked.

 

She could barely reply, only breathed “Yeah...”

 

“Well, that's mostly because I built this thing.”

 

But she barely heard him anymore and didn't reply, being so completely caught up in the incredible view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Again! Because I got nothing else to do than write this after every single fucking chapter!


	6. Meet...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, it is time for Clint and Nat! Also I've been pretending to be clinically dead for the past few weeks, thank you very much. I am lazy, and so I wrote the story without caring to part it into chapters. Making chapters and looking out for all the spacing is such a drag, but hey, heere I go. Have fun.

 

Around the late afternoon, Pepper, Natasha and Clint returned. Ella was in the guest's room, so she didn't notice immediately, but when Jarvis told her, she quickly went down.

When she came in, everyone just looked at her. She quickly shot out a “Hi” and walked towards the small round that consisted of Tony, Natasha and Clint. She shook Natasha's hand first.

“I'm Ella, I'm Tony's daughter.” she said. Natasha didn't even falter for a split second and answered:

“Natasha Romanoff. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

When Ella gave Clint a handshake and quickly introduced herself, he was almost as self-confident as Natasha had been.

 

About ten minutes later, Tony was back to the workshop, Pepper went to her office and Clint disappeared to who knows where, he was just gone the next second. Natasha told Ella that he had the habit of climbing into the vents and watching everyone, and Ella began to consider Clint creepy.

 

Natasha turned out to be a lot of fun in private. Ella had been quite unsure what to tell her or what to say at first, but in the end they ended up both laughing, or more like Natasha was at least smirking and Ella laughing. Ella found herself asking a lot about the red-head's fighting techniques, missions, hobbies and even favourite foodstuffs.

 

Apparently, Natasha liked fruit flavoured chocolate a lot, as well as Pocky sticks. They joked about everyone and anything, and late, late into the evening, Ella had fallen asleep huddled in a blanket on the sofa. For the first time since  _ that _ day, she felt comfortable in a place. Not sorrow-less, but comfortable enough to just fall asleep there and then.

 

The next morning, she awoke around ten, with a horribly stiff neck and a dull headache due to her falling asleep on the sofa. Her left leg had been cut off the blood flow as well as her left hand, and so she slowly got up and awkwardly hobbled and wobbled towards the mini-bar to get herself a glass of water.

She downed the lukewarm fluid and when the headache barely got better, so she filled herself another. Natasha had already gotten up a while before her and was coming towards her now. When she stood next to Ella and began to search through a pile of papers under the counter, the brunette jumped. The woman had come in without a sound. Natasha spoke up.

“I see you're awake?”

“Yeah, about that.”

She took out a paper and walked away again. Ella sighed and tried to get her hair on some kind of order again. Even though it had been in a ponytail she had terrible bed hair. She decided to go back to her room and make herself presentable, for she knew someone would turn up here sooner or later, and she didn't want to look like she just got up, even though that actually was a fact.

 

Around six in the evening, Tony called her to the communal floor via Jarvis.

As she neared the lobby, there were multiple male voices coming from it. Entering, she instantly recognized blonde, tall and muscular as Captain America himself. He was talking to Tony, but looked up when she came in. Behind him, another man sat on a sofa. Purple shirt, brown and curly hair... probably the Hulk. Bruce Banner, apparently.

 

When Tony introduced her to Steve, both of them smiled politely but the awkward tension was there. Ella has never been tall, and Steve was just a giant tall block of muscle. With her rather slender figure she felt like he could pick her up any moment and break her in half like a dry piece of wood. Although he was all nice and friendly she couldn't help but feel intimidated by him and his mere size.

 

Bruce was by far not as intimidating as Steve. She quickly pushed the thought that he could become a green raging monster that was twenty times Steve's muscle and three Steves in size aside.

She kind of liked him, but his usual quiet behaviour made her a little uncomfortable with herself. It was like he knew something or like he plotted some kind of evil plan the whole time. _Don't be paranoid,_ she told herself, _just because he's quiet doesn't mean he's got an evil second personality hidden some- Oh. Well. He has. But that one's most probably not making up evil plans._

 

“Isn't Thor still missing? That guy with the hammer?” she asked when she only counted 5 Avengers in her mind.

“Point break's on Asgard.” Tony quickly replied.

Ella suppressed a sudden laughter that ended in a strange and obnoxious sound.

“Point break?” she asked back, still chuckling.

“Yes, Point break,” Tony said swiftly without giving her a chance to talk on, “and Clint, _get out of that vent!_ ”.

 

Without a word, the archer suddenly dropped out of a vent near a wall, effectively startling Ella.

“You're gonna get used to it.” Bruce mumbled and sighed.

“Hey, guys.” Clint said casually, just as if he had just stepped into the room in a perfectly normal way.

“Someone coming along to the pool?” he asked in the round.

“I'm passing.” Tony quickly said.

“I'm afraid I still got work that wants to get done.” Bruce excused himself.

“Steve?” Clint asked, almost desparately.

“Sorry Clint, I'm not in the mood.”  
Clint sighed.

“Ella, d'you want to go to the pool?” he asked, even though it didn't sound like he hoped on getting a positive reply.

“Actually... yeah. But I've got to change first. Can you-”  
“Cool! I'll be waiting right here!”

Clint was clearly overexcited about the pool.

 

When they stepped to the pool, it became apparent why Clint had been so eager. That _thing_ was a _monstrum_ of a pool, with whirlpool and technicolored lights and whatnot. Ella was in her bikini and towel while Clint only wore shorts.

“Wow. This thing sure is... big.” Ella stated.

“Well, Tony has a giant tower with giant apartments and so there has to be a giant pool too.”

“This is really cool. I whish I had such a thing at home.”

“Well, now there you go.”

“Oh, right.”

In the blink of an eye Clint was in the water and clearly enjoying himself.

“You coming in too?” he asked.

She couldn't resist but smirk. Carefully laying her towel down and making sure it wouldn't get wet she noticed Clint was already swimming around. She quickly hopped in, trying not to get her hair wet. It would be impossible to dry in under two hours.

The water was warm and she turned a few rounds. About six rounds into it, Clint became bored. He started to dive towards her and then poke her from under the water. When he steadily teased her by splashing water in her face, she lost it and started chasing him around. They both couldn't help but giggle like two little schoolgirls and Clint was way too fast for Ella so she surrendered after a while.

She sat on the edge of the pool, catching her breath again. Clint joined her, clearly exhausted himself. They both had a pleasant burn in their muscles and Ella just couldn't care about her wet hair for the moment.

After a while of just sitting there, she said:

“Man, I need to exercise again. Haven't been swimming in quite a while.”

“This tower has training facilities. If you want...-”

She gave him a look.

“Is there anything this tower _hasn't_?”

He shrugged.

“Like what?” he asked.

“I bet this thing has an own research section.”

“Apparently there are labs.”

“And it is completely self sustaining too, isn't it?”

“Yep, that's mainly Tony's work.”

She looked out of the window. When Clint let his eyes wander over her body. He noticed the faint white lines on her thigh, but also the way her legs were well-shaped and contoured. He had only seen those legs on Nat. She had told him once that she used to dance classical ballet. He'd seen her once or twice. She had said she wasn't in shape anymore. He had found it beautiful nonetheless.

“Do you like dancing?” he asked her and broke the silence.

Her head snapped back to him. She looked at him for a moment in irritation, but then replied:

“Yeah, I usually went to training three times a week. I still have to search a good studio over here. Why d'you ask?”

“You got nice legs. So I kind of figured.”

“Thank you.”

He decided not to mention the scars. They looked like they were from long ago and somehow he could sense that she was aware of them and that she knew he had noticed.

 

When she re-entered the living room, it was quiet. Natasha sat on a sofa and read a russian magazine. She greeted Ella when she entered but then returned to her lecture. There was only the sound of her flipping a page from time to time, so Ella got herself some water and sat down next to her.

After a few minutes of just watching and looking at the pictures in the magazines, Ella asked:

“What are you reading?”  
“Oh, gossip and tittle-tattle. Nothing overly exciting.”

“Where did you get those magazines?”

“I often buy some when I have missions in Russia.”

“That's cool. I know no one except you who can read russian.”

“I don't meet such people often either. Do they still teach russian in school?”

“They do, but half of the few people who take that course can't even pronounce all of the letters.”

“That's embarassing.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence again and Ella sipped on her water.

When Bruce came in, he greeted them and sat down as well.

“You done with yoga?” Natasha asked, a bit amused.

“Indeed. You wouldn't believe the air up on there is great.”

“You do yoga?” Ella asked.

“Every morning actually. For, you know, calming down and stuff.”

“Cool. Can I join you for once or so?”

“Tomorrow probably.”

“That would be nice. You know, I really suck at that kind of stuff. We did yoga at school once and I fell asleep during a breathing exercise.”

She heard Natasha chuckle next to her and Bruce couldn't contain a laugh himself.

“Calming, as I said.” he mused.

“I can tell. The teacher hasn't been very calm about that.”

“Then he didn't do the exercise properly.”

After a short pause, Ella just said “ooh...” when she understood.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! Comments rock.


	7. School?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this written down. And i didnt upluad. Because I'm dumb. Yeah.

The first day Ella returned to school, Tony insisted on driving her there. She told him she could as well walk or take a taxi or whatever, but he still took her.

No one in her class seemed to notice her last name or make the connection to Tony Stark, which she was glad about. She was seated next to a girl named Edna Conley. Edna had vibrant blue dyed hair, but her personality and dressing style were mostly normal. Ella had expected her to be eccentric and loud, but it turned out she was quite sociable, although she held a general style of unbreakable wit towards most teachers which often resulted in her making a sarcastic comment and keeping a dead serious pokerface while Ella tried to keep a pokerface herself and failed more often than not. There was also Hazel McMerrill. Hazel was the incarnation of beauty herself. Her hair was just perfect and had the color of dark sand, and she was tall and slim. With her freckles and her little nose she would have been a deer if she was born an animal. The whole time she sat with them she was being ogled by the guys and gifted with hateful glares by some girls. It turned out Edna and Hazel nave been in the same dance crew for a few years now. They invited Ella to come along to the studio the other day.

Tony had told her that someone would come and pick her up, but there had been no further specializations since he would be off to business in D.C. and no one knew who would be free by that time. So she just said goodbye to her new-found friends and waited in front of the school. By the time the school yard had almost emptied, Steve came around on a motorcycle. He parked on the opposite side of the street, but Ella saw him immediately and hurried over.

“Hey Steve.” she greeted him and waved a hand.

“Hey Ella.” he greeted her back.

“Thanks for picking me up. Hope it wasn't too much trouble?”

“No, I've been free anyway.” he said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand.

“Uh, sorry, I didn't ask, can I call you Steve?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He handed her a helmet and she hopped on the seat behind him.

“Hold on to me.” he said before starting up the motorcycle. Ella swiftly wrapped her arms around his waist. She was still way shorter than him. If they stood next to each other, Steve was about two heads taller. She couldn't even talk to him on eye level when he sat on his motorcycle. She couldn't reach her fingertips from around his waist and was way too shy to lean in.

When they turned onto a bigger street, they had to go faster and the cold wind pulled at Ella's thin jacket and she instinctively hid behind Steve and shuffled closer. He gave her a quick featureless look but then looked at the street again. He was quite warm under her chest and she let the traffic float past her while she held on him. By the time they arrived at the tower she had fallen in a dreamy state and bolted up when they parked by the tower and Steve said:

“We're there.” and motioned to get up.

She quickly pulled her arms back and muttered:

“Sorry. Almost fell asleep.”. He chuckled.

“Am I that cozy?”

“No, no, that's not what I meant, I only-”

“Come on, it's okay. Let's go inside.”

She returned him the helmet and silently shuffled along. Now that he stood again, she felt as uncomfortable as on the day she had first met him. He was two metres and something and she felt like a little child next to him with her 1,70ies. Among her peers she was about average with that, and Natasha wasn't that much taller. While they walked towards the back entrace and though a headquarter floor, he asked:

“How was school?”

“Quite fine, actually. The exams will start soon. Also I found someone who will take me to my dancing lessons.”

“That's great. Have you already found a partner for your dancing lessons?”

She faced him.

“Huh? No, it's not that kind of dancing. It's modern dance, you do it alone. There's a group, but you're actually on your own.”

“Oh, like that. Bruce told me about it, but I've never seen it before.”  
“I can show you on the internet.”

They both stepped in the elevator. Suddenly, Steve asked:

“Have you ever been to the roof?”

“No. I didn't know it's accessible.”

“Do you want to go there? I use it for drawing from time to time.”

“Sure. I bet you're amazing at it.”

Steve pressed the button to the top floor instead of the communal floors.

“About decent.” he chuckled.

They waited for the elevator doors to open again. There was a short hallway with a glass front and a door that lead to an empty penthouse apartment and a staircase on the left. They took the stairs and as Steve opened a door, cold and hard wind began to pull on their clothes and hair. He quickly closed the door behind them again and Ella walked towards the edge and looked down on the streets and over the city. This was even better than the window in the living room Tony had showed her. Steve came up next to her.

“It's amazing.” she breathed.

“Yeah, isn't it? The cars and the lights are really interesting. The city hadn't been all that lively back then.”

“The feeling of looking down to it all is just... Can you tell me about, you know, back then? What was that like? I mean, you don't have to. I'm just curious.”

She sat on the railing. Steve sat down next to her.

“I'd say it was a lot different from now, but if you look closer it isn't all that much of a difference. Everything runs on electricity nowadays. In Brooklyn, where I grew up, all the buildings looked the same. All big and broad, one next to each other, all from brick. Across the street from my apartment there was that little grocery store. An elderly lady owned it. She was always, I've never seen her being sad or upset. She used to give out free candy to the children, even throughout the. When you would take the long ride out of the city towards the countryside, the people would often greet you as they walked by. There were those little villages where you could buy handmade bread and marmelade. The people in the pubs would always include you and some would even give you one round on the house. The kids all used to play on the streets after school, and they would always be home by the time their parents wanted them to.”

Ella listened with awe while watching the city. Steve had a great narrating voice, she stated to herself.

“If I played on the streets I'd totally get myself killed or sued in under twenty minutes.” she chuckled. He also gave a laugh, resting his weight on his other arm.

“There weren't all that many cars. It was mostly rich people and the higher-ups who had the good cars. We often went by bike. It was great when I finally got my first motorcycle.”

They sat there for for hours, Steve telling her about the time he'd grown up in. He told her about the military, about Erskine, about Betty, about Brooklyn, about Howard Stark who was technically her grandpa and about Bucky. Ella right away lost her in the world that Steve created with his voice. She stared at her feet while she listened, wondering what it would be like if she had lived back then.

Steve also told her about how he became Captain America – albeit not in exact detail, Ella still found it stunning. She found herself a hundred percent amazed with his shield.

“So you say it cannot be broken? By absolutely nothing?”

“Yes. It's never even had a scratch.”

“Wow. Incredible. That technology could be used for so much...”

“Yeah, it would be really good if we could, but the shield holds most of this world's vibranium. Replicating it turns out to be impossible.”

“Such a shame... I bet it would do great in medicine and so on, not only in military-related things. Imagine what happened if Tony had that stuff on his suit...”

Steve huffed at the mental image.

“That would be just unfair. He could literally kick everyone and not take anything himself.”

Ella looked at him.

“Now come on, just imagine... all countries in this world would totally bash over that suit...”

“But, hey, what if it fell in the wrong hands?”

“Indeed. That could become a serious problem. I like the real Iron Man better that way anyway.”

Steve chuckled.

“Can I take that as some sort of confession?” he said and gave a her a mischievous eyebrow.

She playfully slapped him on the shoulder. Well, at least she tried to, but only reached his upper arm.

“Hey! Don't be silly. And don't tell Tony.”

“I bet Jarvis has got it recorded anyway.”

Ella sighed. _Don't tell Jarvis stuff you wouldn't tell Tony._

“It wasn't all that bad really.”

“You know Tony would use anything to get up his ego.”

He smiled at her. She smiled back and exhaled heavily, rubbing her forehead.

“You could literally call him a stupid whatever and would make a compliment out of it, wouldn't he?” she asked.

“Can't hurt to try, can it?” Steve joked.

She noticed that the sun had begun to set and painted the cloudy sky in beautiful shades of orange, red and violet. When Steve found her getting lost in the sight, he quietly asked:

“Great, isn't it?”

“Yes.” she breathed, “the view has already been great without the sunset, but now it's become just unreal.”

“Well, here you are.”

“Yes, and yet here I am...” she trailed off and exhaled. Her expression turned dreamy again. Steve just watched her. He had already seen this a few times, but he had to admit that the sight was breathtaking every time by new. She was quite petite in comparison to him, but as it seemed her height gave off nothing about her physical abilities. She was probably doing some sort of sports. Running maybe, or dancing. Then his thoughts drifted to the sunset again, and the fact that it was summer as they were still fairly warm, and that it was probably more than late already.

He pulled her out of her stare by saying:

“We should go inside again. It's probably late.”

She snapped out of her thoughts, quickly registering his suggestion and then quickly answering:

“Yeah, you're right.”

She hopped off the railing, Steve following her.

 

They found the others in the living room. They were watching a movie, though not everyone was paying attention. The two of them were greeted with various degrees of enthusiasm when they entered the room. Tonly only half-watched, more focused on his phone. Bruce was watching, but his expression was rather featureless, as well as Natasha's. The only ones eagerly watching were Clint and Thor, the latter one showing an almost childish interest in the happenings on the screen.

Ella settled on the couch next to Tony and ended up between Steve and her dad.

“What are you watching?” Steve asked in the round.

“Dunno. I only joined like twenty minutes ago, but it seems like some family drama. Of sorts.” Bruce informed.

Steve remained silent while Ella huffed. To her, there could've clearly been more interesting genres to this.

After about fifteen more minutes, Natasha announced she was going to bed. It didn't take too long for Bruce to join her too, and when the movie was over, Clint disappeared as well.

By that time, Ella was already half-asleep and snug against Tony's shoulder. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't even have wasted a thought to even leaning in, but now that the couch was cozy, and she was tired, and that shoulder looked so damn comfortable things just happened. Steve was softly snoring next to her, leant on the opposite armrest. Thor had stretched and just sat there, while Tony still continued typing away on his mobile.

“What're you doin'?” she asked him, sleep already making her voice raspy.

“Ah, this'n'that. Work.” he replied in a low voice.

“At this time? It has to be, like, around twelve.”

“That a problem?” he said and threw her a quick look.

“Hm. I didn't say anything.”

She closed her eyes again. She could feel the muscles in Tony's arm tense from time to time or move ever so slightly. Sometimes he huffed and his shoulder jerked a bit. He was warm, and he was so real to Ella – she had someone to lean on, quite literally, and she was safe and she found herself beginning to trust him. She didn't know why, she generally didn't trust anyone, but here, on this sofa, in the late evening, it seemed like nothing in this world could hurt them. Not now. Not ever.

She realized she had fallen asleep on Tony's shoulder when his hand was on her shoulder, gently pushing her off him and on the backrest of the sofa. He got up and left. Ella took a moment to wake up. The room was empty now, spare for her and Steve, who was still sleeping on the armrest, even though he had slipped down a few inches by now. Ella had school tomorrow, or rather today, and it would be better if she slept in her bed for the rest of the morning.

When she dropped in the guest room's bed, she had barely managed to change.

_Captain America isn't all that bad after all._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember to leave a comment and thank you for reading <3


	8. Lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is up too :) Have fun :)

Ella had managed to get to school by underground the next day. She was meeting up with Edna at some point and they did the ten minute walk from the station to the school together. Ella had been worried she wouldn't be able to find Edna and then be lost in the middle of New York, but all of her worries had went flying when she saw the other's glooming blue head on the opposite side of the street.

 

She waited for green light and hurried over to her.

“Hey Edna! Your hair sure isn't to be overseen.”

“Yeah, Hi. That was the intention.”

They gave each other a quick hug and started walking. Suddenly, Edna chuckled.

“What's up?” Ell asked. Edna began to tell:  
“You should've seen that. Y'know, I was with Hazel the other afternoon, we were in the city. We were at Starbucks. Of course it wasn't like they didn't typo our names. Well, when we sat, there was that guy, he...” Edna gripped her forehead and began to laugh, barely able to walk straight anymore.

“Man, you should've seen that guy, he just-”

She couldn't contain her laughter. Ella began to grin. She had no idea whatsoever what was going on, but seeing Edna laugh like that sure was funny.

 

“He just?” she tried to help, but the blue haired girl next to her only laughed louder and supported herself on a wall for a moment. She was obviously having the most vivid mental image.

“Y'know, that guy just came on his skateboard, hopped off and walked-”

Ella looked around, a few people looked at the pair awkwardly.

“Hey, c'mon Edna, people are beginning to look, spit it out.”

“They had those great full-height glass windows, and he just hopped off and walked straight into that thing!” she finally got out and whilst Ella only grinned a bit wider, she laughed even harder.

“Really, Ella, You should've been there! That just looked so hilarious...”

“Do you really find that kinda stuff so funny?”

“Most times I don't, but that dude just looked amazing. Speaking of, we've been near the Avengers Tower. You know, that giant thing in Manhattan?”

Ella almost said 'yeah, I live there.', but then just nodded. Edna didn't have to know that. Or anything related to that really, so she only nodded.

“When we looked up back then, there was someone on the roof. I didn't even know it was possible to go up there.”

 

Ella swallowed. Her and Steve hadn't remained unseen. She was surprised Edna had even been able to see them, the tower wasn't exactly small.

“Hm. Dunno.”

“Just imagine what happened if they fell down. That'd be nasty.”

“Sure. But I don't think they let people up there on a regular basis.”

“Yeah. Man, I bet the sight is amazing. I wanna go up there one day.”

“Me too.”

They arrived at the front gate of the school. When they noticed they didn't have any lessons together that day, Edna asked Ella to meet her at lunch with Hazel.

“Sure thing!” Ella said and saw her off.

 

This had been close. If she wasn't more careful, she wouldn't be able to go anywhere without people in her back when they found out who she was.

First block was U.S. History, and ironically enough the guy who was seated next to her wore a Captain America shirt. _Oh if he knew..._

The matter was more than dry, but the teacher said they had to go quickly through everything since the exams were starting by October. Well, if she ever needed help in this subject, she knew whom to ask.

 

Continuing with physics and chemistry, the day went by slowly.

When the lunch bell rang, she only muttered “Fucking finally.” and rushed out the door.

She found Edna and Hazel on a table in a corner and quickly made her way across the room. She dropped her bag on the bench before settling in the booth herself.

“Hey guys.” she sighed.

“Has school been that bad already?” Edna asked mockingly.

“Nah. I'm just kinda tired. Chemistry sucks. Physics is too easy.” the brunette mumbled and rubbed her temple.

“You're one lucky girl, man,” Edna brawled, “I can't do anything related to maths. The only thing I can do is sports and music. Why exactly are you so gifted?” she asked, whining and dropping her head on the table. Just when Ella way about to reply, she went on:

“You know, Hazel here also is perfection incarnated.” and grabbed Hazel by her shoulders.

“Hey, don't say that...” said girl muttered and blushed.

“You know it's true. She can dance, she can do maths, she can draw, she is beautiful, she gets all the A+ grades, she is socially gifted. What else would you want?” Edna declared loudly.

“You know I don't always get an A+...”

“Yeah, sometimes it is only A-. What a shame!”

“Come on...”

“Tell me, is there anything you can't do?”

“You know perfectly well I'm shy as hell...”

“It isn't all that bad.”

Ella decided to interfere:

“Say, Hazel, have you really never had a boyfriend?” she asked with a smirk.

“No, I've never known anyone...” Hazel mumbled back and blushed an even deeper shade of red, hiding her face behind her hands.

“Hmm, maybe you aren't interested in _guys?_ ” Edna asked suggestively and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Ed, stop it...” the other whined back.

Edna just stared at Ella.

“What's up?” the brunette asked, slightly irritated by the stare.

“I'm hungry.” Edna finally stated, hitting the table as if to strengthen her statement. She took out a plastic box and a paper bag with various bakeries in it.

“You two just gonna sit there or you gonna join me?” she asked, mouth already full with muffin.

“Eat up before you speak.” Hazel scolded her and took out her own stuff. Ella unpacked the two sandwiches she had hastily prepared in the morning. Hazel only had some salad in a plastic box.

“Seriously, girl. You still only eat green stuff.”

“Yeah, you got a problem with that? What about me being vegetarian? That shouldn't be new to you.” she threw back sharply.

“What do you actually live of? Unicorn magic?” Edna asked, looking at her.

“Don't be silly.” Hazel snapped and ate some of her questionable lunch.

“I like your salad.” Ella said.

“Thanks. Want some?”

“Nah, thanks. I got my own stuff.”

 

They continued to eat in silence until Hazel suddenly looked up and made a sound like she remembered something.

“Dancing lesson's today afternoon!” she shouted.

“Oh, right, almost forgot that.” Edna agreed.

“You wanna come along?” Hazel asked Ella.

“Sure, would be cool. About what time?” the brunette replied excitedly.

“Directly after seventh block.”

“Oh. I only got six...”

“Oh, shit.” Hazel immediately slapped her hands over her mouth.

“Easy, here.” Edna said and nudged her with her elbow.

“Anyway, you okay with waiting for a while? Just this once?” Hazel continued.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“We'll meet at the front gate then.”

The bell rang and the three of them quickly packed their stuff and excited the hall, all in different directions.

 

After the sixth block, Ella stepped out of the school building. The air was dry but yet thick and the sun had heated the concrete steps outside the door, creating an unpleasantly hot and exhausting atmosphere. Ella quickly located a small bench in the shadow of the school building.

Dropping her bag and slumping down herself, she looked around. No one was around. No – there actually was someone on the opposite side of the yard. Now that that someone had seen Ella, he stood up and came over.

It turned out to be a slender guy, with flaming red and curly hair and more freckled on his arms and face that Ella could ever hope to count.

“Hey.” he said, smiling at her.

“Hey.” she answered, squinting at him for the sun was in his back.

“Can I sit down?” he asked and smiled even wider.

“Sure.”

He just sat down next to her, not saying anything at first. After a while she asked:

“What's your name?”

“Nash. Yours?”

“Ella.”

 

They fell into silence again. There was no need to talk – Ella felt strangely comfortable around him, even if they just sat there.

Nash broke the silence after a while.

“You're not from here, are you?” he asked.

“No, why?” she said surprised and looked at him. He caught her gaze.

“I've never seen you around. Honestly, I saw you in the underground this morning. You looked quite helpless.”

She chuckled.

“Have you been following me or something?”

“Nah, just saw you. I was about to help when you figured it out.”

“I see.”

“Then, where are you from?”

“Fort Worth. That's near Dallas.”

“I'm from Boston. My parents lived there. When I turned 18, I got myself an apartment over here since they sold ours and emigrated to France.”

“Wow. Do you... miss them?”

“Oh, not really. When I finish school in the summer I'll do my kinda own thing.”

“I don't know yet what I'm gonna do.”

 

They continued chattering about general stuff, but mostly they just sat there in comfortable silence. Finally, they heard the bell announcing the end of the seventh block. After a few moments, the first students poured out of the big door and soon, a particular mop of blue hair came through the door. As Edna and Hazel came closer, Ella saw Nash off and catched up with the girls.

“Who was that?” Edna blurted out when Ella was in hearing range.

“Oh, that guy came over when I sat there alone. We talked a bit.”

“You got a date now? Be honest.” Edna smirked, waggling her head from side to side.

“Of course. You know every normal person gets a date on the second day in school in a new city.”

Edna grinned at her widely and snickered.

 

They took the underground to the studio. It was quite a trip since the studio was located in the outer districts, but not too far away.

From the outside, it was a large brick building. It kind of reminded Ella of what Steve had told her about the houses in Brooklyn. They entered through a side entrace and went through some narrow and dimly lit hallways, upstairs and through a white metal door. Behind the door was a completely different atmosphere. The hallway was spacious and well-lit, with benches and tables and a few chairs, cupboards in between. It was lively, there were people everywhere, walking around, sitting there, stretching, a few practicing a few steps or moves to themselves.

When Ella tried to think of the little studio she had went to she swallowed. There had only been on teacher, and about twenty students and they had practiced in an empty conference room of the city government.

“Impressed yet?” Hazel asked. Edna had already gone ahead to the changing rooms.

Ella only managed to nod.

“Don't drop your jaw on the floor. Just wait until you see the examination rooms.”

She waved for Ella to follow her.

They met Edna in the cabines. She was already half-changed. Realization hit Ella.

“Shit.” she muttered, stomach sinking to her knees.

“What is it?” Hazel asked.

“I totally forgot to fetch my dancing stuff.”

“Oh, that's no problem.” Hazel said and easily tossed her a pair of dark blue tights and a pair of black cotton ballet shoes.

“These are my spare ones. Just be sure to bring them back next time.” she reassured Ella and smiled.

“You can keep wearing that top for this time, I think that will be no problem.”

“Gosh, thank you. I see I would be lost without you.”

“Anytime.”

They all quickly changed and headed towards the examination halls. Ella just stopped and stared. There were glass windows on one side and the remaining three walls were almost completely plastered with full-height mirrors. As they walked towards a corner, Ella stared at her reflection in the mirror the whole time.

Suddenly, Hazel hastily tapped her shoulder and then grabbed her upper arm. Ella shot around. In front of them stood a brunette woman, about average height but well-built and a good amount of muscle. She had her hair in a strict topknot, but smiled warmly as she greeted Ella and Hazel.

“Good afternoon, Hazel. I see you brought someone new?” she opened the conversation.

“Good afternoon Ma'am. This is Ella, she moved here a few days ago and wants to continue attending her dancing lessons.”

The woman smiled at Ella.

“Good afternoon Ella. It's nice to meet you. I am Miss Trevino, Hazel's and this group's teacher. I assume you have already had dancing lessons?”

“Yes, I've had lessons back in Fort Worth for eight years now. It was mostly classical ballet and modern dance.”

“Then I expect the best from you. Just line up with the others and try to do your best.”

“Alright, thank you.”

And with a last smile, they both lined up for the warm-up.

It was not something Ella hadn't already seen, nor did it overly exhaust her. They did some basic ballet moves, this and that, stretching and so on. After that, they exercised a few more advanced moves in front of the mirror to an easy piano music Miss Trevino had put on on the stereo. Having the mirror in front of her was completely new to Ella, up until now she had mainly danced on the opinion of others. Now that she could see herself it was way more reassuring, also she could recognize things way better.

“Alright ladies, we're moving to the impro now.” Miss Trevino announced loudly. Everyone hurried to one side and Ella quickly followed. The woman called one name after another and everyone moved to the middle of the room and did about one or two minutes of impro before the next one was called out.

Edna was quite impressive, even though it was kind of obvious that she was more the hip-hop kind of person. Some of the moves were rather harsh and quick, but all in all her way of moving held a good measure of elegance.

 

Hazel was a complete different class for herself and Ella became slightly anxious. Every single toe she showed was perfectly pointed, every hand and every shoulder was in a perfect position. She just looked like this was what she was made for. She wore a perfect expression, she never stumbled, all of her pirouettes were flawless. As Ella looked around, she noticed most of the others were just as impressed as she was, despite having seen Hazel before.

When Hazel came back next to Ella, only slightly panting and only sporting the tiniest amount of sweat, Ella only muttered:

“You damn piece of perfection incarnate. Edna was right.”

“Y'know, I did this for quite a long time.”, she swallowed, “and I love it.”

“I could see that. It was beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Hazel smiled and nudged Ella's shoulder.

“I'm looking forward to seeing you.” she said.

“Hell no, compared to you I'm shit.”

“Hey, give it a try.”, and with that, Ella's name was called out. She stepped forwards and felt everyone's gazes in her back, so she positioned herself with her back to the other students.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	9. Dance!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter! Enjoy!

The first few moves felt a little stiff, but she was quickly able to forget the others and her motions felt more fluent. She listened to the music, randomly made something up. After a while, she had to admit that those weren't only ballet moves she was bringing up. Modern dance was doing it's job in her mind. As she turned a number of pirouettes in quick succession, she was able to see the other's faces for a split second every time. She got uneasy for a moment, but then closed her eyes and looked anywhere but the crowd with her next moves. The music ended and Miss Trevino announced the next exercise.

Everyone positioned themselves in the room and as Ella walked towards the group, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Hazel.

“You were good.”

“Thanks.” Ella replied and smiled.

“You did modern dance, didn't you?” she asked nicely.

“Yeah. Couldn't stop myself from bringing that up.”

“That's perfectly fine. I bet Edna would take you to her hip-hop lessons as well. Just ask.”

“I will.”

They did a choreography next. Miss Trevino said it was for the show after New Year's. There also were pas de deux parts, but they simply begun practicing the single parts. Hazel got a solo, of course.

At the end of the lesson, Ella was done. She had only had two hours at a time and three lessons a week, but the lessons here took three and a half hours. One course only had two lessons a week, but as Hazel told Ella, some people including her would attend two courses a week or an extra lesson. Hazel herself took the advanced classical ballet course as well in which they only were six students. They mostly did solos. Edna did the hip-hop course and the standard classical ballet course they had just attended.

“Edna, care to take me along to hip-hop?”

“Monday and Wednesday, three-thirty to six. You're welcome.”

“I'll be there.”

“By the way Ella – you're good. The impro was, well, not bad.”

“Thanks.”

They did the ride back to the inner city in complete silence. Hazel said her goodbye and excited the train about halfway but Edna and Ella both climbed out on the station near the school. Then they both took different trains.

 

Back at the tower she didn't see anyone at first. She kind of felt like an intruder, even though she lived here by now.

When she was on her way to the guest's room she still lived in, she heard some noise from a black double door on the other side. Almost like someone was fighting.

She walked over and listened for a few more moments. When the dull sounds of voices and thumping didn't subside, she carefully pushed the doors open.

It was the gym. In the middle, Clint and Tony were sparring in a boxing ring. Steve was doing one-arm push-ups nearby, greeting Ella when she entered and the door fell closed behind her. Clint tackled Tony to the floor when said man looked at Ella for a moment. Ella silently shuffled towards a bench in a corner and dropped her bags and jacket.

“That's what happens when you don't pay attention because you're looking out for the ladies, Tony.” Clint muttered with clenched teeth from holding the other down.

“C'mon, Legolas, let go-” Tony pressed from underneath him, so the archer released him. Bot men jumped to their feet.

“Ella, what gives?” Tony asked casually.

“I heard someone fight, so I came here to see what's on. I figure I'll be watching you guys for some time. Go on. Don't mind me.”

Tony and Clint looked at her for a moment.

“Well then. Bring it on, Legolas.” Tony said with a renewed grin. They began to walk around each other again in circles, carefully watching each other's footwork. Tony striked first, but Clint striked better. They mostly were level and constantly trying to land a hit and blocking the other's attempts to do so. Ella watched them, fascinated and with awe. Steve came over at some point and settled down next to her, causing the bench to dip towards him.

“Have you ever watched someone spar?” he asked.

“No. They're amazing.” she breathed back.

“I know, right?”

 

They watched until Clint tackled Tony to the ground yet another time.

“When did you come back? You're quite late aren't you?” Steve suddenly asked and turned to her.

“Oh, I've had my first dancing lesson today. Took quite long, and the studio is in the outskirts of the city, so, you know. Was good. I'm gonna go there twice a week, and then maybe attend a second course. There are some people from my class, so I'm okay.”

“I didn't know you took dancing lessons. I would really like to see you once or so.”

“Really? That can be arranged.” she said and chuckled, “I'd be honored to dance for Captain America himself.”.

Steve smiled at her and then at his knees.

“Hey, I know you're far more than just that.” Ella mockingly comforted him and let a hand dance over his shoulder before going to rummage around in her bag.

“You okay with right now?” she asked.

“What?”

“I said I could show you right now. I can do homework later.”

“I've got the time. Go on.”

Steve sat upright as if awaiting something. Ella had to grin for he looked a little like a child or a puppy of sorts. She pulled out her old phone she had gotten a few years back. A former friend from her class had given it to her for half of the original price when he got a new one. Since then, this had been Ella's only mobile. It was scratched and picked and the casing was a bit deformed and missing a piece of a corner at some point. Ella just went with it and saw no necessity in replacing it since it still worked. She was pretty sure it had fallen into the water once or twice and had already withstood a few feet and falls from the third level of a building, it seemed to be made of steel and iron. Or so.

 

She picked a song to which her old crew had a choreography to. ( _For anyone who wants to know: Ed Sheeran – Give me Love should do for the image. Idek._ )

She quickly ripped off her shoes and went to dancing in just her socks. Then she hurriedly tapped the 'play' button on the screen, twice because the screen doesn't always work that good, and finally hopped back a few steps, just in time before the song started.

She started off a bit rough since it had been a while since she last did this one, but managed to think of everything in the end. Not all jumps and pirouettes did work out as she wanted them to since she only wore her socks. Apart from that she didn't stretch first and wore jeans, so some figures were a bit difficult to do and she was sure that one set of steps looked pretty stupid since she tripped a little, but she didn't say anything.

But about halfway into the thing, she noticed that familiar feeling spreading in her belly again. She knew all of the steps by heart, her feet already did their own thing. It felt like she was floating, flying almost. There was no strain in it, no pain, little to no effort. These were the moments that always gave her the feeling like she was made for this. For dancing. The evenings back when she was eight and she would cry because she had a sprained ankle and she couldn't dance, and her mom would come and comfort her about it. The the evenings when she had a show and she was afraid she would mess up, and then just forgot the audience. She thought of the dozens of shirts that laid in her bag in her room, shirts of competitions and different teams and crews. The box full of the dried heads of the roses she had gotten on the shows – one for each evening. All of the bliss, the people, the joy. Even if her mom was dead now, even if she lived thousands of miles away from where her home had been – she could still dance. No matter where she was, and what she did, she could always have this. This was her anchor, and she would give anything to dance again.

The song ended, she did the last pose and then quickly fell out of it. She shuffled towards Steve to retrieve her phone again. Then she heard the three men in the room applauding. It sounded a bit uncomfortable in the big room and it quickly subsided, but yet she felt her face warm up.

“Wow. You're really good. The style is different from seventy years ago, but it really has something.” Steve said.

“Ditto. Ella, this was great.” Tony praised as well. When she looked over, both him and the archer had sat down on the edge of the ring to watch. Clint only gave her a 'not bad' expression and a thumbs up.

She went even redder and slumped back on the bench with mumbled, breathy “Thanks, guys.”.

“You're welcome.” Tony said as he got up again. “I take it you've had lessons back in Fort Worth?”

“Yeah.”

“For how long exactly? That looked pretty advanced.”

“Since I'm six, so since... ten years approximately.”

“And what-”

They were interrupted by a loud alarm and a red flashing light on the wall near the door.

Everyone went into a rush. Steve jumped up, “shit”, Tony and Clint quickly threw off their equipment and climbed out of the ring.

“Hey, guys, what's up?” Ella asked in a quivering voice, slightly panicked, gut sacking to her knees.

Tony quickly hurried over to her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3 I'm gonna congratulate anyone who made it through this boring text that is just my mind puking. Or.


	10. Under Attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, enjoy <3

“We're under attack. Come on, we gotta get you to the basement.”

He grabbed her upper arm and pulled her towards the exit. She still hesitated a little.

“Now please hurry, you can leave your stuff here. I can replace whatever gets broken, however I can't revive people when they get shot because they just stood around.” he said harshly. Dead serious. She now willingly followed him, and he let go of her arm and ran towards the next elevator. Everything was flashing red, and loud, and the Steve and Clint shouted and nobody told her what was going on, where the others were and she found herself starting to panic.

Tony had sensed that. The next moment, he had her pinned against the wall next to the elevator.

“Eyes on me, Ella.”  
She stared at his eyes, trying to control her breathing again.

“Listen well, okay? There's not much time, got that?”

She nodded hastily.

“All I want you to do right now is to get into that elevator and then press the button for the fourth lowest floor. When you get out, you're in the basement. If anything happens, whatever, get to the basement, use the stairs, I don't care. Find yourself someone in a black suit and ask the way to conference room three. Wait in there for me. You got me?”

He had yelled out all of his instructions.

She only nodded in return.

“Say it, where you gotta go?”

It was difficult to get out a tone at all.

“Basement, fourth lowest floor, conference room three-”

“Good enough, now go!”

Steve and Clint were long gone and parts of Tony's suit came flying from a hallway on the left. They heard shouting and footsteps and there was an explosion that knocked Tony against her and her head against the wall. Her ears were ringing and she couldn't hear anything but the static. The whole world was blurred and turning and she just couldn't see anything right, but Tony's now metal hand shoved her into the elevator and she remembered her task.

She punched the button for a low floor... she wasn't sure what floor it was exactly. She was on the ground, vision still blurry and she thought she might not have it a button at all, but then the doors slid closed.

 

Silence. She tried to get up and succeeded eventually, with a hand on the wall and a horrible headache. She now saw that she had hit the button for level zero, not the fourth lowest. Damn, why couldn't she just cancel that shit? This shit piece of an elevator had to be technically advanced in some way too...

The whole tower was.

Jarvis.

“Jarvis?” she called out desperately. Her speaking made her head sting and pound. She had to support herself with two hands on the wall now.

“Yes ma'am?” the british voice came out, more serious than usual.

“Bring me to the fourth lowest floor. Forget level zero.”

“As you wish, ma'am.”

The light jumped from zero to minus six.

“Thank god...” she mumbled and almost sacked against the wall. Almost. She couldn't know what was going on on level zero, so this was just way better. She trusted Tony to give her directions with which she wasn't going to run into a bunch of enemies.

 

The light wandered lower and lower and when it was almost by the second light, she stood by the side of the door. How stupid would she be to stand right in the front, because in case there really were enemies down there, she would be dead the moment the doors opened. Not that she would have much of a chance anyway, but this way her nonexistent chance when enemies were down there heightened for a bit.

 

When the doors opened, she peered around the corner. There only were many people in black suits, running around like ants if you stuck a piece of wood in their buildings. The atmosphere was tense and the lights were bright, but cold.

She stepped out and wasn't even around the first corner when a blonde woman in a black suit stopped her.

“Sorry, Miss, but you have no permission to be here.”

“Um, Mr. Stark sent me here, I was instructed to go to conference room three...”

“Miss, I'm sorry, but you can't stay down here, you will have to go up again...”

“I- Please, can you just show me where-”

“You still have no permission-”

“Christie, let her go. She's fine.” suddenly a male voice interrupted them.

It was Coulson, the guy who hadn't even spared her a proper greet the first time they had met. Christie just shot Ella a suspicious glare and excused herself from Coulson before walking off again. Where the hell did that guy come from now?

Coulson himself called someone who just happened to walk by and told Ella to follow him. It was a woman again, a brunette this time.

“Show her the way to conference room three.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

Without a word, Coulson walked away too and the woman motioned for Ella to follow her. They walked through more hallways, around so many corners that Ella lost count of it, through a steady mass of busy people in black suits.

They stopped by a plain gray door with a sign that said 'SHIELD – conference room 3', the woman opened the door for Ella and saw herself off before the other could even thank her, so she quickly stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

The lights dimmed up automatically. The room was spacious, the table large enough to hold at least fifty people. The room itself could fit much more.

She was alone, and her steps sounded strange and obnoxious as she walked towards the table to get herself a chair. She had no idea what was going on and she knew no one of the people out on the hallways, but she trusted Tony. She tried not to flip when she pulled the chair out to sit down. The noise of steel on the concrete ground made her head pound painfully again. She was here, and everyone else was god knows where, and she was scared. Scared that she would get lost one way or the other, that someone wouldn't come back, anything. She knew it was unreasonable, and yet.

She tried to hold on to Jarvis. She was sure he could get her some kind of connection.

“Jarvis?”

“Always here for you, ma'am.”

“Can you put me through to Tony somehow?”

“I'm afraid Sir is in combat right now and shouldn't be disturbed. However I can send you live footage of the security cameras.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Yeah. Do that.”

“If you would please retrieve one of the StarkPads from the cupboard behind you.”

She did as she was told, and the second she got her hands on one of the large black devices, the screen lit up and read: 'Welcome Ms. Stark'. As soon as she settled down again, the window disappeared and four different windows with live feed opened up.

“Thanks, Jarvis.”

“Anytime, ma'am.”

She had never really noticed him calling her 'ma'am'.

“Why exactly do you call me ma'am?”

“This is my default setting. Do you wish to change it?”

“Forget it.”

“Very well, ma'am.”

She turned to watch the footage. She saw Steve, of course Clint was nowhere to be seen but his arrows showed where he had been. She could also catch a glimpse of Tony from a camera on the streets. She couldn't see anything specific, but at least he was flying and that mostly meant he was fine.

The room was pretty cold and she only wore a tee. She begun to notice now since she hadn't moved for a while, and she shivered. She put down the Pad in her lap and wrapped her arms around herself. She watched, concentrated and making sure she counted five Avengers every now and then.

She hated this, only watching. There was nothing she could do.

Suddenly, there were shouts and multiple heavy footsteps outside the door. Ella sat upright, adrenaline making her wide awake and her heart beat faster. Jarvis spoke up again.

“Ma'am, I would have recommended you to move, but I'm afraid my security compartments have been overridden.”

“What do I do? What's going on?”

“Sadly, I have to tell you that the enemy has protruded to this floor. There is probably no escape. I am running a scan on escape possibilities for you.”

“Then run it faster.”

“Scan accomplished. It seems the door is the only exit.”

“What about vents. Clint always does that.”

“There are vents in this room, but you are unlikely to escape through them. They are too small.”

“ _What do I do?_ ”

Now she got impatient. She shouts and the steps got even louder, her hands were cold and sweaty and she felt herself shake.

“I can lock down the door and-”

“Just do whatever gets me time or gets me out of here.”

“Very well. If you would please move to the opposite corner.”

The locks of the door clicked in place and Ella hurried over to the advised corner. As soon as she arrived, the tablet in her hand turned off and he lights went out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe you enjoyed reading? Then leave kudos and comments, bc that's cool.


	11. Shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got no idea how that kinda shit works please dont judge me. *goes off to silent corner*

She was in the dark, heart beating in her throat. Now she was angst-sweating all over and got even colder. She listened for every sound from outside, expected them to break the door at any given moment. They would totally kill her. She stood against the wall, counting the seconds, the breaths, the heartbeats, still clutching the tablet. She found it getting difficult to breathe. Oh, what had she gotten herself into here. She was clearly having a panic attack. _Okay, calm down._ She slowly tapped her fingers on her thigh and tried to match her breath to it, to no avail. She was hyperventilating, her fingers and toes begun to prickle from the lack of oxygen. They were coming for her, this was all final, she was going to die-

With a shattering bang, the door exploded and hit the ground. Two men poured in and located her almost immediately when the tablet slipped from her sweaty hands and she shrieked due to the explosion. She slung her arms over her head and slid down the wall. Loud static from the explosion filled her ears. She only heard the low rumbling of the people around her, and then there was burning and blinding pain in her right upper arm. She cried out and held her arm. She didn't know when she had landed on the floor, but she didn't care, because it hurt, and she was so scared, so fucking scared for her life, and there was more loud noise, muted thumps on the ground and louder thumps and she barely felt the floor shake underneath her.

Next thing she knew was a hand on her shoulder. It was hard and cold, and the hand shook her, she heard a muffled voice but she didn't know whom the voice did belong to nor what it was saying. She decided to look up again. Above her was Tony, in his suit, helmet open. He was shouting at her, but his face relaxed in relief when she looked at him, yet it was still creased in worry. It almost made her cry, she didn't want him to worry just on her behalf...

The static slowly subsided, and now she could understand him halfway.

“...-doing? Hey, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, what happened?” she pressed out and tried to grab his hand, but when she pulled her left hand away from her other arm, it was covered in red. Her eyes went wide.

“Ella, are you hurt? Show me.”

She grunted and stood up, supporting herself on the wall. Strange. There was blood all over her arm and shirt, but she didn't feel any pain.

“It's alright, it doesn't hurt. Probably just something trivial...”

“Hell, no, Jarvis scanned it, this is a fucking flesh wound. You're under shock, that's why it doesn't hurt yet. I'm telling ya, this is gonna hurt like a bitch later.”

“Oh. Is it safe outside already?”

“No, not yet. Just follow me closely. Can you walk?”

“Think so.”

She made a few steps into the room. The world turned and made black spots appear in her vision. Tony came to hold her upright, but she got better after a second. She laid a hand on his back and followed him out. Down the hallway, Cap was fighting a few intruders and Nat came up behind them and took out a sneaky bastard that had managed to come up silently from behind them.

“Hey Stark. Are the upper floors clear?”

“Yeah, I think the last few ones are in here. Can you handle this one? Someone's gotta bring Miss Sunshine here to the infirmary.”

Ella snorted at the nickname. Natasha pursed her lips, but then answered quickly.

“You go take her. We'll be fine.”

“Alright. Meet you in fifteen there.”

Natasha sped off to help Steve. Tony swooped Ella off her feet and went to walk around a corner.

“Tony, you know, I still can walk by myself.”

“This is faster.”

“Don't be silly.”

“Then don't try to be a hero and let yourself be carried.”

“Really, it's not all that bad.”

“Shut it.”

She sighed and dropped her head against the armor.

Her head shot up again when she heard Tony curse and footsteps approach from ahead.

“Let me down.”

He set her down without a word now.

“Get behind me.” he instructed her.

She obeyed, blocking her ears and waiting for a signal from him. She noticed the blood was dripping from her elbow to the ground now and she was starting to feel light-headed and a bit dizzy, like drunk almost. But it still didn't hurt, there only was a strange feeling of pressure on the wound and a distant ache. Tony finished off all of the intruders that were left. He motioned for her to follow him again, but didn't carry her this time. He quickly led her through the hallways, around too many corners and at some point, she stumbled and almost tripped. She had to support herself with one hand on the wall again, and so Tony carried her the rest of the way.

She sighed in infinite relief when her back finally hit a cool mattress. She was totally exhausted, Tony still tried to tell her something, but she didn't care. She just wanted to close her eyes and sleep. But no, someone had to slap her across the face, not hard but multiple times.

“Hey, stay with me.” one of the paramedics said.

“I need you to stay awake for now, you can sleep afterwards.”

The man continued talking to her to keep her awake. While another man stitched up her arm, the first one made her drink two whole glasses of water and then stuck a needle up her arm. He said something about dehydration, but Ella couldn't care less. There were too many people, and they all were running around and talking and doing stuff, and she just couldn't concentrate on one of them. She was also having a difficult time even staying upright.

Ste thought about the other Avengers. She was a hundred percent positive they had suffered from something similar too, each of them, and she was sure as well they wouldn't pass out like her that fast. Of course, Steve and Bruce weren't exactly human in that kinda stuff, but hell if Natasha hadn't at least once got shot in the arm and then continued fighting for more than half an hour.

After some time, when the man let her lay down, she was barely able to keep an eye open. Sleep drew her in quickly and mercilessly. Maybe it wasn't even proper sleep, maybe she just passed out. But at the moment, either was fine with her really.

This must've been the most exhausting half hour of her entire life or so.

 

When she woke again, she wasn't exactly awake at first. It was more of a struggle for consciousness and she had a hard time keeping her eyes open with all of the light around her. She blindly sat up, still not completely seeing what was around her. Her right arm was stiff and sticky and achy. As soon as she had gotten up, one of the paramedics came in and ushered her to lay down again. They did a few quick tests, determining a light concussion. They told her she was on painkillers, which was the reason she had difficulties with waking up completely.

Natasha came to pick her up. They sent Ella on her way with a few more painkillers to take twice a day and the advice to rest for two days until the concussion got better.

The redhead assassin greeted her with a smile and a quiet “hi”. Once Ella was discharged, they wandered towards the elevator, passing rubble and malfunctioning lights and a few people here and there.

“So, this wasn't the first time you guys have gotten attacked here, was it?” Ella asked as soon as they got out of the infirmary. Natasha smiled.

“No, it wasn't. Although it was a bit tougher than the other times. I'm sorry they hit on you.”

“I think I'll be fine. Can't be changed now.”

Ella had to take a break by a wall when she was hit by a slight wave of nausea. Nat stood by her side in silent understanding. They went on after a moment.

“Tony's been worrying his rich ass off, he thinks it was his fault you got shot because he told you to go to the basement.” Natasha informed her and smirked.

“As I said, It can't be changed now. Was a shitty coincidence.”

The other just shrugged.

“Maybe a bit of worrying does good for his ego.”

“You're being mean.”

“It's called honest, not mean.”

Ella playfully slapped Nat across the shoulder, who shoved Ella back herself. They walked on, both laughing into themselves.

It turned out that Bruce had prepared some kind of nighttime meal for the team and Nat had been sent to pick Ella up so she could eat with them.

She had actually been asleep for a few hours so that it was a few minutes after midnight by now.

“You guys really didn't have to wait.” she told them, but they insisted nonetheless. Before they sat down, Natasha pulled her to the bathroom by her sleeve and told her to wash off the blood.

Oh. When Ella looked in the mirror, she could barely recognize herself. There was dried blood on her arm, hands, in her face where she had touched it and in her hair. Natasha quickly and efficiently got rid of the most. She was very gentle with it and then fixed up Ella's hair a bit. It almost felt like back in primary school when Ella and her little friends would do each other braids and stuff. Despite the fact that a superhero and master assassin was doing it, and that it was barely more than a simple bun, she enjoyed it for a bit.

After Ella had excused herself to her room to inject herself with the regular amount of insulin, they all sat around a low table on various sofas and loveseats. Bruce handed them all a bowl with steaming rice and some sort of eastern-indian-vegetable-chicken-hot-sauce, of sorts. There only were few words spoken, and none were needed. Everyone was tired, and hungry. They all had a few bruises here and there, but nothing too bad.

When they were done, Ella just wordlessly stood up and sat down next to Tony. She laid her head down on his shoulder and mumbled:

“Thanks for helping me out.”

His hand wandered to her thigh and squeezed lightly. That was all the answer she was going to get, but it was enough. At least he didn't try to blame himself anymore.

They just sat there, looking around. Clint settled down next to Natasha, putting an arm around her waist. After a while of silent sitting, Tony quietly asked:

“Is your arm okay?”

Ella didn't react at first until she found the question had been for her.

“Better. Should be fine, I got some painkillers. They told me to rest until the day after tomorrow.”

“Then you should probably go to bed.”

“Hm.”

Neither of them moved. Ella just sighed and snuggled even further into her father.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	12. Hazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Remember to leave a comment, that would just be lovely :)

She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep until she woke up. Tony was gone and she laid on the sofa alone. Someone had draped a blanket over her and her painkillers and a plastic bottle of water stood nearby on the ground. She smiled. Whoever it was, it was a sweet gesture.

She was reminded of the previous evening the second she moved to sit up. Her head pounded again, her arm stung and funny spots danced in her blurry vision. So this was what hangover felt like. She downed one pill and half of the bottle and shuffled to the kitchen. Nat was there, preparing breakfast for herself and Clint. The archer sat on the unoccupied part of the large kitchen island with the ridiculously expensive-looking black stone plate.

“Morning.” he cheered. She was sure she made a pretty pitiful sight when she just hummed at him and got herself some tea.

“Headache?” Natasha asked in an understanding tone. Ella hummed affirmatively again.

“I got a concussion yesterday, so.”

“Clint has gotten himself one too.”

Natasha remained serious as she sliced up fruit, though a little smile played around her lips. Clint gave her a look she ignored.

“I didn't-”

“Don't think I didn't hear the doctor.”

“Since when do you eavesdrop my personal medical issues?” Clint snapped and his eyes tightened.

“I just happened to walk by.” Nat chirped innocently.

Clint snorted. Ella just sat down on a bar stool and watched, sipping her tea.

“As if-”

“So you have one.”

“No! What does make you think that?”

“The fact that you desperately try to fight it off.”

“And what if I had one?”

“Nothing, just admit it.”

Now he huffed. Ella only smirked behind her cup.

“Do you know where the others are?” she asked.

“Cap and Stark had to set off for an emergency mission around six. I think Banner's in his lab.” the redhead answered and swooped the fruit into two bowls of yogurt. The two agents began eating and Ella herself retrieved some muesli.

 

“Anyway,” Clint started between two bites, “what room have you got?”

“I live in a guest room in 36th floor. Why d'you ask?”

“Don't you think it's time to get a proper apartment?”

“I'm afraid I can't pay one.”

“No, no, I meant that you should ask Tony for a proper bunch of rooms in the tower.”

“I don't think I... well, I don't want to take advantage-”

“That's fine. I didn't want to either, Nat and Banner as well, but he just gave each of us apartments with view over Manhattan. I mean, he gave me the highest-up apartment of us all in the team just for the Hawkeye joke. I'm sure he'll give you one. There's plenty of space around here.”

Ella thought for a moment about what Clint had said.

“I might ask him the other day.”

“Don't be shy. You can be confident of yourself, you've been really good yesterday.”

“When-... I didn't fight, Clint.”

“No, you weren't, I meant your little show.” Clint said and did a circle in the air with one finger.

“Oh. Um, thank you. Wasn't all that good actually...” Ella muttered.

Natasha interfered:

“What show?” she asked hastily.

“Well, uh...” Ella attempted to explain, “Steve asked me why I was home that late and so I told him I had training and then he asked me whether I could dance a little just for the fun, so yeah... You could put it that way.”

One red eyebrow quirked upwards.

“You can dance?”

“Um, yeah, but I'm not that good, I, um...”. Ella couldn't help but feel intimidated by the dead serious face Natasha was wearing. She started to ramble.

“That's great! I, uh, used to dance too a few years back.” the redhead said and and looked down to her hands.

“Maybe we can... do something together? Once or so?” Ella asked, a bit hesitating.

“I'll think about it. I... haven't done it in a while.”

“It's fine. Let me know whenever you feel like it.”

“Sure.”

When they had almost finished, Bruce came around. He silently made himself a coffee and took the stool next to Ella.

“Hey.” she said. “Have you been sleeping? You look a bit … restless.” she said carefully.

“Yeah, that happens sometimes, when-”

They both looked up when Nat and Clint excused themselves to the gym, but then Bruce continued.

“Uh, what I was saying is that I usually sleep a lot after the … Other Guy decides to show up. I was in the Hulk out room yesterday evening.”

He took a sip of his coffee, not looking at his conversation partner. Ella just sat there in silence, signalizing she was listening.

“So, I didn't sleep all too well until now. That is.” he finished and finally looked at her. Since he was sitting quite slumped on his chair, her face was higher up than hers. With the way he looked at her like that, tired, exhausted, from below, she didn't say anything at first.

“So... what gives? What made you get up this early?”

He chuckled and looked away for a moment.

“You know, it isn't exactly early...”

Ella searched for the red numbers of the clock on the stove. Nearly ten.  _Ugh._ She smiled awkwardly.

“Yeah... I guess. So, you couldn't sleep anymore?”

“No. I might as well be useful.”

She got up and begun to do her dishes. She had to lean on the counter for a moment when the nausea took over for a moment again.

“You alright?” Bruce asked, a little worried.

“Yeah, I'm fine, just taking a moment. My circulation's a bit weak, got myself a concussion yesterday.”

“You should lay down.” he said, being the good doctor he was. He shifted his weight to the other side uncomfortably. Ella started to rinse her spoon.

“I've been told that, I'll probably lay down again when I'm done here.”

She quickly finished off the rest of her tea and started a new cup. She watched the water and the bubbles of the soap assemble at the bottom of the bowl, then rise until they slowly flowed over the edge. She ripped herself out of her daze and dried off her stuff. When she set it in the cupboard, she didn't pay attention for a moment and hit her head on the open wooden door. She quickly flinched away, head pounding again and loudly cursed “shit” under her breath.

When she looked back, Bruce still only sat there with his coffee, giving her a half-excusing, half-amused smile.

She settled down on the sofa with her tea again, rolling herself into the blanket she had slept in.

“You wanna join me for a movie?” she called out to the scientist on the kitchen island.

“Might as well.” he said to no one specific and shuffled over.

“Jarvis?”

“Always here for you, ma'am.”  
“Get a movie going.”

“Do you wish for a specific genre?”

She looked ad Bruce, who only shrugged and motioned towards her with a smile.

“Let's take some action stuff, shall we. Nothing too heavy.”

 

The flatscreen tv on the wall opposite of where they were sitting lit up, and soon a semi-interesting shooting movie played. They both watched the first few minutes, but then Ella found her thoughts wandering elsewhere.

She had gone from living alone with her mother to living with five superheroes within a week. Quite the climate change. She thought back to her mother. She had been energetic, mostly cheerful and had a great black humor. Those wild red curls of her. She had always tried to straighten them, get them in some sort of order or whatever. Ella had those too, although not as bad. Her hair had been soft, and seeing that shade of red had always made her feel safe. Home. That was until the chemo – she had cried when all of those wonderful red locks had disappeared, one after another. When her mother had shaved the rest off, she had secretly collected one and kept it in a little plastic box, until today. Her mother had always had so much hope, made others who were sad on her behalf laugh again. Ella missed those times. Those times where her mom would tell her that she would always love her, and then messed up her hair. Those times where they would just lay together and say nothing. But they had to take her away, she was slowly being devoured by her disease. Ella got older and older, and she never understood how her beloved mom could live like this. Even when there was no hope anymore, her mother could still smile, genuinely, like she had always done. So Ella smiled with her. Even on that day. They told her it was going to end, it was all going to end, so she took her home one last time, and they sat there, in her mom's bedroom. Her mom laying there, head in her daughter's lap. Her daughter above her, cross-legged, holding her. They talked for hours on end, recalling all those little moments, and just holding on to each other. Ella recognized her mother was not scared of dying. She had let all of the fear go. There was nothing she could be afraid of anymore. For these last minutes, Ella let herself be enveloped in that thought. Maybe she would just pass away too. Silently, painless, without a sound. Just like that. Nothing to worry about. But she had made the promise to live, and so she tried, she tried hard not to cry. Not this time. She was old enough. It was evening when it ended. The sun fell on them both, through the half-closed blinds. They were covered in warm golden stripes. They both were warm. Her mom wasn't in pain anymore. She was happy with herself, with what she had done. There were no words needed. Ella didn't try to stop her, didn't cry, didn't want to make her unhappy. She just tried to be happy for her, with her. She saw her close her eyes, squeeze her hand one last time, and that was it. She went cold after a while. The sun went down, and Ella didn't try to move away. She just held her mom. Like she had always done it for her when she had been younger.

“Ella?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	13. All flashy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm keeping uploading chapters till i die, probably. Because I'm procrastinating my real life responsiblities an tasks. That's what I'm good at.

She was drawn back to reality brutally fast. She jumped and looked at Bruce. Shit. She had zoned out completely.

“W-what?” she stammered.

“You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, completely, don't worry.”

“You're crying.”

_ What. _ She quickly wiped her eyes and cheeks. Apparently, she had been crying and not noticed it.  _ What a baby you are. _ She sat upright and smiled at him.

“No big thing.”

“You looked pretty sad though. I understand if you don't want to talk about it.”

“I'm... just let it fall, please. And please don't tell the others.”

Bruce was silent for a moment, and didn't look at her either.

“I won't.”

“Thank you.”

“You know I'm there to talk any time.”

“I know. “

They finished the movie in silence. The silence was neutral, not uncomfortable or anything. She quickly fell asleep again afterwards.

She woke to the sound of multiple voices approaching her. Her arm hurt like hell and her heart was thumming in her head unbearably hard. She blindly reached for the painkillers and water bottle and did only succeed on the third try. She quickly downed one dose and curled up on the sofa until the pain had subsided a little.

This was shit.

Someone stepped behind her and she felt a hand on her shoulder. She slowly glanced around to see Tony, obviously back from his mission.

“You done already?” she asked her feet.

“Yeah. I gotta talk to you.”

“Alright.” she she sighed and extended her legs and arms so she was sitting normally again. He sat down on a sofa on her right.

“You knew this would come. You've been seen with Steve on Monday.”

“Ugh.”

“Can't be changed now. You gotta give that press conference. It's scheduled for tomorrow.”

She groaned again.

“I can't do anything about it, you-”

“No, it's okay, I know it's kind of inevitable, but try speaking a bit less loudly. I still got a headache.”

“Oh, sorry.” Tony had lowered his voice immediately.

“No problem, just... yeah. Go on.”

“Well, Happy will take us there, he and our redhead sunshine are responsible for security. Pepper will come along, she can handle most of the press stuff.”

“Fine... what time will it be?”

“We'll have to start by seven tomorrow.”

She let out a heavy breath.

“Okay.”

“You can do it. You better sleep in your bed for the rest of the day.”

She hummed, getting up from the sofa. He already walked away again, but then spun around on his heel again.

“You got something semi-decent to dress?”

“Think so.”

“I can order something.”

“No, no, I think I can find something.”

“Great. Later.”

“Yeah, thanks, bye.”

He walked off again. She spent the rest of the day in her bed in the guest room, sleeping or just dozing off. She eventually remembered to ask Tony about an apartment. She made a mental note to ask once she has survived the press conference.

 

When five a.m. rolled around, she was wide awake. There was absolutely no way she was going to sleep again.

She crawled out of the bed, took her meds, showered and even washed her hair. She dressed some fresh black trousers, her favorite gray shirt and a dark blue MIT hoodie her mother had owned. She dried her hair as well as it would get and then sat on her bed. Realized she couldn't sit still and paced around, and then decided to go try and eat breakfast.

There was only Steve in the kitchen. He had a ridiculous amount of tuna sandwiches in front of him, politely wishing her a “Good Morning.” as she entered. She mumbled something similar and drunk a glass of juice. When he offered her a sandwich, she politely declined. She wouldn't be able to keep that down once they would arrive.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“Yeah.” she said, rubbing her face. She found herself pacing in the kitchen again. Tried to just calm down a bit, but it didn't work.

“Good luck.” he said when she turned to leave.

“Thanks. I could use that.” she replied with a strained smile.

She retrieved a softshell jacket and her sneakers from her room and then went down to the garage floor. She quickly shrugged on her jacket and bound the laces on her shoes, and when the doors opened, Happy was already waiting for her. Pepper was with him. Said woman could sense her being hellishly nervous at a glance and offered a reassuring hand on Ella's shoulder. When she thought of all the people, not only those in the room but those who would watch her in tv, listening to every single of her words, watching every step she did, her stomach churned. She was glad now she didn't eat anything.

Tony was already waiting by the car, all in suit and tie and with nothing less than a black limousine. She gave him a quick nervous smile and then took the seat he offered her by wordlessly opening a door. He went to the other side, Happy drove and Pepper took the co-driver's seat.

She half registered Tony informing her that Natasha would await them at their destination, and she decided to just look out of the window. Her brain played worst-case scenarios on high speed. Her tripping and falling flat on her face. Her saying something completely wrong. Her not being able to say anything at all. She started to sweat.

“Hey.” she heard Tony's voice. “C'mere, look at me.”

Like back then, when they first had breakfast together. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes.

“Don't worry. Just remember this.” he said, firmly, and she nodded.

“There will be a lot of people, and I know they can be scary. When you go out there, just smile and wave. Or forget the wave part, just smile, whatever happens. Be self-confident, walk upright, make them think you own the world.”

She nodded again.

“Got that?”

“Yeah.” she half-croaked.

“Just don't get yourself worked up. When we get out of the, car just follow me and Romanoff. If they ask you anything, just walk on, don't answer, don't let yourself be distracted. Easy?”

“Okay.”

She took another shuddering breath.

“You can do it.” he said with a last pat on her shoulder. The car slowed to a halt and she could already see the crowd through the darkened glass of the windows.

This was about as bad as she had expected it to be. Tony and Pepper already opened their doors and got out, and were greeted by cheering and flashlight. Tony came around the car and opened her door. She took his offered hand, and as soon as she set a step outside on the concrete, she was greeted by lights flashing and even louder rumors and calls. Tony bowed down to her eventually, “don't forget to smile, love, and walk straight” and then let go of her hand. She squared her shoulders and smiled kind of nervously. Happy came out of the car as well and they moved towards the giant gray block of a press building.

 

Ella was getting more and more irritated by the many flashlights, and her legs refused to work, but she forced them forward. One step after another, up a few stairs, and though a door. Tony subtly patted her back.

“Proud of ya.” he mumbled and they headed though the lobby and towards a big silver-gray double door. Natasha joined them wordlessly at some point, nodding at Tony who nodded back ever so slightly.

“Ready.” he hushed into the brunette's ear when they entered the double doors.

They were accompanied by a new wave of flashlights as they walked towards a table at the head of the giant room.

Ella sat down carefully next to Tony. For a moment, she thought she couldn't do this. When she looked in all those faces, she could feel them examining her, trying to read her. Tony, again, calmed her down with a hand on her arm under the table. His hand left again when he stood to open the conference.

 

She didn't exactly listen to what he said, but when he sat down again, there was a bunch of journalists in the crowd that already shot their arms up to ask the first questions. He  _ had _ said something about who she was and what her name was, but nothing more. She started to imagine what her face would probably look like in the newspapers tomorrow, so she sat straight again and refreshed her smile.

It didn't take all too long for people to ask who the mother was. Pepper blocked that question off, as well as the question where she had been up to now.

When they asked her how old she was, she gave them her age, sixteen. When they asked how she felt about having Tony as a father, he threw her a quick glance and she moved extra slowly to win time to think. Not that she could think properly like this anyway.

“Uh, well, if you ask like that, I'd say that, well, it has worked out until now. It is a bit different from what I lived like before, but I think the fact is a bit... overrated.”

Now that was one straightforward answer.

Where she lived?

“At Stark Tower, at the moment.”

She was getting more confident from time to time.

What school she attended?

“I don't think that information is necessary to the public eye.”

After what felt like an eternity of people picking her with questions, Pepper announced they were done and closed the conference.

Not that they would just go to the car and ride home. Almost as soon as they had gotten up and stepped down from the podium, Tony was approached by a man, in suit and tie as well. He gave Tony a firm handshake. Pepper stood next to Tony like she owned the very ground they all walked on, and Ella just tried to keep a pokerface next to Natasha, who of course maintained a one hundred percent dead serious expression. Tony himself wore a booming smile, as always when he was in public, and the two men did some smalltalk-slash-how's-the-business-doing-as-usual-banter. They were approached by a few more people, some who wanted something from Ella were efficiently blocked off and “another time.”-ed by Pepper. Once they came to the lobby, she mumbled said super-woman a “thank you, you're the superhero of publicity,” in the ear, at which Pepper only chuckled and muttered “Years and years of training, dear. You're gonna rock it one day too,”. When a blonde woman quickly approached them, “Christine Everheart, Vanity Fair,”, Ella could've sworn she read annoyance on Tony's face for a split second. Pepper, however, kept up her “I own the fucking ground you walk on”-smile and started a quick conversation with the journalist.

When they had finally punched their way through to the car, Ella was completely done. She slumped in her seat the second the door closed. Tony's ans Pepper's smiles subsided as well. The former sighed deeply and rubbed his face, the former fastened her seatbelt, muttering “gosh, how much I hate these people” under her breath.

“How do you guys even do this on a regular basis...” Ella asked no one specific.

“You'll get used to it once you do it often enough, really.” Pepper reassured her.

“You did well. Just try to be a little, you know, more... self-confident.” Tony advised.

After a short moment of silence, Pepper said:

“That Vanity Fair bitch wants an interview.” and went on listing all of the people that wanted a photoshoot, an interview, and, and, and.

“Nothing less to be expected. That woman's a fucking cormorant. The vultures are circling, dear.” the genius next to her notified.

“I don't even wanna know what happens once I go back to school.” she mouthed her current string of thought. That was when her phone in her pocket rang. It was Edna.

“Oh, please kill me right now, talking of the devil.” she whined, but answered it anyway.

“Hello, Ella speaking.”

“ _Ella. Don't tell me that's you on channel two._ ”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks again for reading <3


	14. Far up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have fun!

“It's... I- you know, it's a bit complicated-”

“ _So it's you?_ ”

Edna sounded a bit furious. A  _bit_ . Ella exhaled deeply and shot Tony a glance. Both Pepper and him were looking at her.

“To put it like that, yes.”

“ _Why didn't you tell us? You know you could have._ ”

“You've seen the whole thing, haven't you?”

“ _Yeah._ ”

“I, uh, I'll be back to school on Friday. Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but...”

She she sighed. Edna was obviously pissed by now.

“ _And now someone's taking a few days off the school with celebrity points. I really expected more of you._ ”

“N-no, that's not it! I'm, er, kinda sick so I can't go to school right now.”

As if to confirm what she had just said, her headache came back.

“ _You looked pretty not sick on tv, you know._ ”

“I know, that is intentional. I took meds.”

“ _You know you ain't got a way out when you come back._ ” was the last thing her class comrade said before the line went dead.

She dropped her hand with her phone back in her lap.

“You heard, didn't you.” she asked the others.

“I bet you can settle that on Friday.” Tony said, thinking.

“I hope so.”

The rest of the way home passed in silence.

Back at the tower, Ella downed one pill and a glass of water. She planked face-first into her bed. Wait a second. There was something she had forgotten. There had to be...

Ah, yes. She turned round and slapped herself on the forehead. Clint had told her to ask Tony for an apartment. Now that the press conference was over, she had promised herself to ask. She rolled around on the bed, trying to squirm away from the task at hand.

Then she saw Clint was going to convince her the one or other way, and that it couldn't go all that wrong.

She found her father in one of the various labs, together with Bruce. The latter smiled at her when she entered, the former didn't notice her until she stood behind him and tapped his back. He jumped around, but then recognized her.

“I... Igottaquestion.”

“What?”

“I wanted to ask you some... thing.”

“Fire away.”

“Clint told me about his apartment the other day, so I wanted to ask whether I could-”

“Yes.” Tony said, excited.

Ella just stood there dumbstruck. Bruce snickered somewhere in the background, laying down his work and taking a sip from a bottle of water.

“If that was what you wanted, of course...”

“Yeah, actually,”

“Okay, then...”

“...”

“You sure we're talking about the same thing here? I was gonna ask you anyway if you wanted the top apartment.”

Her eyes went wide.

“N-no, I don't need anything fancy, just-”

“No, that's fine, take it. It's been free anyway.”

She felt her face heat up.

“Thank you...” she breathed, smiling awkwardly.

“No, no need to thank me, you couldn't live in the guest's room forever.”

“Anyway.”

“You can take your stuff there. Jarvis, unlock apartment number ten for Miss Sunshine here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you again.”

“You're dismissed.”

“Alright, fine.”

She decided to just roll with the stupid nickname and once she arrived in her room, she quickly threw all of her stuff into her bag. It didn't take too long since she had practically lived out of the bag until now.

Jarvis took her to the top floor without any commands needed, and then she was there. She had already seen this when she had been on the roof with Steve, but it was way different now. The glass around the door was transparent with a few design lines in a milky white on it. The blinds were completely shut, and when she approached, the door opened with a light hiss. She slowly entered, setting down her stuff next to the door once she was inside. Said door closed without a sound. There were a few tall cabinets on the left, a beast of a desk by the windows, an empty minibar, a low coffee table with a few chairs and a secluded compartment without a door, but rather a thick red curtain. She slowly walked though it all, let her fingers glide over the smooth metal of the desk and then strode past the curtain.

What she saw next was the biggest fucking bed she had ever seen. This had to be Giant King size, big enough to make the Hulk comfortable in it. There was a large wardrobe and a stereo by the windows. She went back to the first part of the room. The walls were tastefully accented with smooth stone panels, the floor was perfect black and shiny tiles. Each single tile was longer than her lower leg.

She stood in front of the windows.

“Jarvis, open the blinds.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Slowly, the plain gray material of the blinds disappeared towards the ceiling.

She'd seen this before, but to live in this room permanently and have this sight over Manhattan and the river really warmed her from the core. She didn't realize she was grinning like a madman until she heard Tony's voice from behind her. She hadn't heard anyone enter, and she was still alone in the room. She found that Jarvis had started the computer on the desk and opened a video conference with Tony.

“You like it?” he asked, smirking.  
“Why do you even ask, you know it's incredible.”

“I know, right? That's mostly because I built this tower.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You up for a little bit of shopping this evening?” Tony asked with a renewed smirk.

“There's no fucking way I'm setting a foot outside again today.”

“Who said we were gonna go out. You know, there's that cool thing called online shopping.”

“Then say that from the start on.”

“After dinner it is then.”

“After dinner.”

The window closed and Ella stared at the empty screen. She found herself grinning again. She was grateful into her every fiber, and she didn't ever want to turn Ton down. Not for the apartment itself, but for helping her through her new life like this.

She made herself one abandoned bag of instant Chinese food she found somewhere in the cupboards in the communal kitchen for lunch. Steve joined her on the sofas in the living room at some point, and they began to chat while eating.

Ella however stopped eating when she heard a lightning crack out of the blue and flinched. Steve stopped too, but then began to smile into the salad he had. There were heavy footsteps approaching from somewhere and the door rattled open loudly and crashed to a stop at the end of it's rails in the wall.

“Holyfuckinshit.” Ella cursed and almost dropped her food at the noise. She turned around. In the doorway, grinning from one ear to the other, stood the Norse god of Thunder, Thor himself.

“Fellow friend Steven, it is me a great pleasure to meet you again.” He bellowed and gave Steve a bone-crushing hug.

“May I ask where the rest of our fellow warrior friends have gone at the moment?” he questioned loudly.

“Um, I think Clint and Natasha are on a mission, but the rest should be in.” he said, carefully moving his back as if Thor had accidentally crushed something. Then Thor noticed Ella, who had been sitting silently in her place up to now, not moving, not making a sound.

“Hey.” she said nervously and offered a smile and a small wink.

“Fair Lady,” he boomed, “I am honoured to meet you. May I ask for you name?”, kneeled on one knee in front of her and bowed

“I'm Ella, I'm Tony's daughter. I case you, uh, missed that.” she said and got even quieter the more Thor stared at her.

“I did not know brother Stark had such a lovely daughter.”

Her face was burning red.

“I, uh, thanks. No one knew. I live here since a few days.”

“Then I am looking forward to having you as a fellow sister in this tower!”

“Me too.”

That Thor guy sure was a loud one.

“You know, Thor, your cape is quite impressive.”

“It has once been my father's on Asgard.”

“Cool.”  
“Do you mortals still have a package of the lovely food called poptarts in your mighty kitchen realms?” he asked and strode towards the kitchen, dropping his hammer on the kitchen island.

Steve hurried over, “Let me see, wait a moment...” and began to rummage through the cupboards. Ella eventually remembered to eat, although her gaze never left Thor and his hammer and his giant red cape. She had never seen that a cape this large. It was probably heavy as shit, she slightly wondered how Thor could wear this thing all the time.

By the time Steve was done preparing the poptarts and Thor was munching happily, Bruce came around. He was greeted with a hug as well, though not as hard as Steve. Thor kind of tip-toed around Bruce. Well, as much as Thor was able to tip-toe.

Ella just dozed off on the sofa most of the time, chatting with Steve sometimes. She was offered supper from Bruce, but politely declined for she didn't actually feel hungry. When even Thor was done eating his double portion and Steve had finished off his triple portion, they both retired to their rooms. Thor, of course, wished everyone a “resting sleep of night” before he trampled off.

Ella got a bit grumpy when she realized Tony wasn't gonna turn around since it was already past ten. She wished Bruce a good night (at which he chuckled, “not that I'm going to sleep much, but thank you. Have a good night too.”) and went to search Tony.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	15. Not easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyho, go read, have fun.

Jarvis revealed he was in his workshop. Ella went down by elevator and then stood in front of the darkened glass for a minute. Tony normally didn't let anyone in his workshop, and this wasn't exactly urgent. Maybe he just forgot the time over something.

She laid a hand on the handle and pressed, but the door didn't budge. The little screen next to the door flashed red and demanded identification. Tony hadn't given her any codes, so she hesitantly let go of the handle and held her hand in the air uselessly for a few moments. She took it down and stared at the door again. She had no right whatsoever to enter Tony's “holy halls” as Clint would always call them, and it was probably nothing overly bad he didn't show up. Maybe just sudden paperwork or something.

She turned around and went to the living room again. Bruce was still there. When she entered, he looked her up and down and his eyes stopped on her right arm for a bit longer than it would have been normal.

“Is something wrong?” she asked when he still didn't say anything.

He turned his attention towards her now and casually said:

“No, but I got a feeling like the gauze on your arms needs to be changed.”

“Oh, I lost sight of that.”

“Should I do it?”

When she didn't reply immediately, he opened his mouth to say something, but then she quickly replied:

“Uh, yeah, that'd be nice. Is that why it always says 'doctor' Banner? I mean, you know...”

“I'm an actual doctor, yes.” he said, quirking an eyebrow.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to-”

“No, it's fine.”

“Well, then...”

“We'll go to my lab if you don't mind.”

“No, not at all.”

It was pretty late already and the sun had already set. When they arrived, Bruce made Jarvis close the blinds and told Ella to sit on a cot that stood on a wall. She carefully shoved aside a few books and papers and then sat down. Bruce has turned away and searched for his equipment among the rest of his stuff. She looked around. There were multiple books and papers, a computer with a few screens, two tablets, various containers with unidentifiable fluids, a few plants, but all in all it wasn't a complete chaos. Bruce was probably more the kind of person to order his stuff according to the energy flow in the room or something, mostly since he did yoga.

When he returned, Ella took off her hoodie and pulled her shirt's sleeve up to her shoulder, exposing the gauze wrap around her arm which had an unpleasant yellow-ish color in some spots by now. She tucked the sleeve over her shoulder to fix it there and Bruce got to work.

He unwrapped everything and was extra careful when peeling off the last few layers. The fabric stuck to her skin and he would have had to rip it off, but that would have probably damaged the stitches. He let go and retrieved a wet piece of cloth and carefully removed everything. Ella watched when he cleaned up the area around the wound. It began to burn again when the water from previously reached the injured area. She took a deep breath and gritted her teeth to suppress it. Eventually, Ella spoke up.

“Do you have any clue what those people wanted back then?” she asked, speaking to the opposite wall.

Bruce's hands stopped for a moment and he looked at her. She looked him in the face now. He took a breath and didn't speak immediately, but then said:

“We still don't know. SHIELD is on it, but I doubt we will ever find out if we haven't already. It's probably not all that important if they didn't reach their objective now. Nothing is missing, no secret data has been read. It's a bit of a mystery, but I think we stopped them early enough.”

“Ah. I see...”

“You know, about...”

He stopped in his movement and didn't look at her.

“I'm listening.” she said calmly.

“About that evening when we watched a movie- I mean, I don't want to be impolite, ...”

“Oh, no, it's fine. I, uh... to put it like that, I came to Tony because my mom died in first place. They had been a couple for a few months, but then Tony left my mom and she was already pregnant with me. She hadn't told him, and she never did. So I kinda grew up alone with her. When I was thirteen, she fell ill with cancer. She...”

Ella took a moment to breathe deeply so she didn't tear up again. Bruce remained silent.

“It... it ended this summer.” she croaked out. “But I think she was happy with the way she went.”

There was silence for a moment, but then she offered Bruce a sad smile.

“I'm glad you can accept it the way it is.” he said and smiled back.

“You do miss her, don't you?”he asked, going back to his original task.

“Yeah.” she breathed, “but I think I'll be fine. You know... I think Tony's making effort in making me comfortable. I'd feel bad if I turned that down, I really appreciate it. I still kind of...”

She sighed, searching for words. Bruce did not interfere.

“I still kind of feel like I don't really belong here. I mean, I like the tower and everyone's so nice to me, but I still don't feel like I can call this place my home.”

She felt the muscles in her back tense and chewed her bottom lip.

“I mean, I said I don't want to turn it down or something-”

“Hey.” he said calmly, looking at her. Her eyes found his.

“It's fine. No one said you had to settle in completely in one and a half week. Good things take time. It's good you can talk about it, and I'm sure you will find you way in.”

“Thank you.”

“Just don't stop trying, but don't try too hard.”

“That's quite some wise lines you got there.” she said, now smirking at him.

“Life has made me wise, I would say.”

He finished wrapping up her arm again and patted her shoulder. She hopped off the cot, tugged down her sleeve again and shrugged on her hoodie.

“Thanks for treating me.” she said, but he just smiled, “anytime, just come back on saturday.”. She wandered off to her room and changed, quickly checked her sugar levels and fell asleep in her king size bed.

 

First thing she realized when she woke up was that today was Friday. That meant she would be going back to school.

Second thing was that it was ten minutes after five a.m. It still did nothing so soothe the stream of adrenaline that was already pumping through her veins and made her neck itch and her hands shake already. She quickly got off her bed by swinging her legs over the edge. The cold stone tiles under her feet did something to ground her, but not much. She took a shower in the giant ass bathroom down the hallway. It actually was the only door on the floor except her room, the elevator door and the door to the roof.

She showered in the giant ass shower, brushed her teeth and combed her hair in front of the giant ass mirror and was seriously amazed with the ridiculous number of towels under the giant ass sink.

Again, she only drank a glass of juice for breakfast but packed herself a few sandwiches, in case she was in the mood to eat later on. She hadn't seen anyone so far.

Short before half past six, Tony turned up in the kitchen to hug her and wish her luck, advising her one more time not to get too worked. Reminding her she could call him anytime.

She winked one last time when the elevator doors closed behind her. She pulled out her phone and texted Edna.

_Hey, I'm coming back today. Meet me at the station? - Ella_

She didn't have to wait long for a reply. As she stepped out of the elevator and crossed the entrace lobby, her phone rang once.

_Sure thing. But remember, the score isn't settled yet. - Edna_

A moment later, there was another message.

_And Hazel sends one kick in the ass. Also she wants to kick you for real later. - Edna_

Ella just read the message and then stashed her phone away again. She sure had gotten herself two loving friends there.

In the train, a few people gave her odd looks or even pointed at her and when she stepped out of the train and headed towards their usual meet-up spot, the rumors around her got even louder. She eventually remembered to walk straight. About halfway to their meet-up spot, someone asked her for a photo. She did it, as well as two other photos, but then she luckily reached Edna and Hazel. She quickly pulled them off to a closed corner with a few benches and sat down with her back to the seemingly endless stream of people coming from both sides.

“So, hello. Here I am.” she said, both exhausted and a bit guilty.

“Look what upcoming celebrity has decided to show up.” Edna replied with a smirk, leaning back against the slightly dirty tiled wall. Then she quickly leaned forward and slapped Ella's shoulder, pulling her into a hug, laughing.

“Man, you really thought I was angry with you, did you?” she said, a vibrant smile on her face.

“It honestly seemed like it, I'm bad with reading people's emotions without seeing their faces.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. We won't like you any less just because it turned out this way. But you know, it was shitty to give us a false identity.”  
“Really, I'm sorry, I had no choice. You wouldn't think how much stress that stupid conference alone had been...”

“Forget it.” Hazel suddenly interfered.

“It's just good to have you back. And to know who you really are. Unless...?”

“No, really. This is my actual identity.” Ella said. She exhaled deeply. She did that a lot lately.

“But... you guys sure you want to be around me? You'll be known as well.”

“Quit worrying,” Edna said, “If we wouldn't be fine with that, we would've left you already. That sound logical?”

“Yeah.”

“Now stop moping around. School starts in fifteen minutes, and we don't want to be late, do we?” Edna cheered, got up and led the three of them towards the school building.

Everything went well apart from a few more awkward stares and pointing people. The way to the classroom and the first few lessons didn't bring any problems either, apart from a few classmates scurrying over awkwardly in the breaks and asking whether she really was Ella Stark. She always politely answered, but contained her self-confident posture.

It was lunch break when hell broke loose. Ella had even made a point in quickly leaving the classroom to find themselves a secluded corner, but they weren't fast enough. As soon as she walked in the cafeteria, everyone just stared.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	16. Stand on your own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here goes...

She felt hundreds of eyes on her, looking her up and down, examining her like back in the press conference. But this was different. These were not objective journalists, there were students. From all walks of life. They would judge. Chatter and mutter rose again when she moved over to a table on a wall, and by the time she sat down there were a few people smiling at her, or winking, or just staring. She decided to ignore them from now on and unpacked her food. Stared at it as well. Pushed it aside. There was no way she was gonna eat with all people staring her into the wall behind her.

“Hey, don't worry. Just eat, they will loose interest eventually.” Hazel muttered reassuringly as she leant over.

Ella managed to force down one sandwich out of two. Sensing it had been a bad decision, she already felt sick from it.  _ Great _ .

They got up, making their way towards the exit. Hazel walked by Ella's side like an anchor for the brunette, who really appreciated the gesture. Just as they stepped though the wooden double swing doors, a loud and horrible scene opened up in front of them. A wall of a boy had another guy pinned against the lockers by his throat, shouting at him. Another, smaller boy tried to interfere, but he was brutally shoved backwards by the wall guy. He fell and fearfully shuffled backwards on his behind. The moment she looked closer, Ella recognized a particular redhead.  _ Nash _ . She really liked him as a friend, and she didn't like that wall of muscle.

But what was she to do? Ask him to stop like the guy who now disappeared between the rows of watching students? Go there and punch him, as if that would have an effect?

Suddenly and incredibly random remembered Tony's words from their first breakfast.  _ You're technically the daughter of Iron Man. _

Yes. She still was scared of the bigger guy, but this was her moment. But this was her moment to turn the shameless stares into something better.

Obviously reading her mind, Edna came up behind Ella and catched her gaze from the side. Then Ella walked towards the center of the scene at the lockers and tapped the big guy's shoulder. Now that she stood here, the short and fragile statue she was, against the wall of aggression and muscle that stood in front of her, her heart faltered for a second when said wall turned its head.

“What do you fucking _want_.” the wall hissed at her.

Her gaze flicked towards Nash for a second, who had in fact recognized her, eyes wide and staring at her in shock. She took a breath.

“Oh, you know, I want a lot. A new mobile would be nice, aaand...”

“ _What do you fucking want._ ”

She swallowed hard, felt herself starting to sweat.  _ Keep it up. _

“I was coming to that point. I want you to let him down.”

The wall grimaced at her. The crowd around them had gotten silent.

“Oh, and what if I _didn't?_ ” he said and shoved Nash into the lockers even harder. The redhead cried out and his hands flew up to desperately claw at the hand locked around his throat.

“I think... I'm gonna make you. Yeah, that should do he trick.” she snapped, locking her arms in front of her body.

“I wanna see that.” the brute chuckled.

“I'm afraid you won't.” she coldly said. She had waited for this exact moment for the last few seconds. She quickly drew up her leg and landed a good hit with her foot just below his eye on his cheek and nose. It seemed she had kicked hard enough because he cried out and dropped Nash, stumbled backwards and held his bleeding nose. Ella was grateful to whatever god existed there that it had worked out. She had never kicked someone like this before, or trained kicking whatsoever. In fact, her flexibility from dancing just came in handy here, and it seemed the wall hadn't expected it, nor was he able to react that quickly.

Nash hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, barely able to hold himself up, coughing hard and retching. Ella threw him a quick glance, but someone already knelt next to him.

The wall had already straightened up again, slowly coming towards her, growling. She started to sweat for real now, because if it came head-to-head now, she didn't have a hint of a chance.

“You're gonna pay for that one _so hard,_ you little bitch...” he threatened as he came closer.

“Am I?” she asked cockily, successfully keeping up a pokerface. Whatever god existed up there definitely was on her side today.

Her opponent only growled again, like an animal almost.

“Can I give you a cheque? I'm afraid I left my money at home, I can't pay you back right now. We should delay this.”

She inwardly shook her own hand for almost not missing a beat and not wavering.

The wall came closer and closer.  _ Shit _ . He was totally going to kill her, this was going to be painful... she still just stared at him, looking him in the eye.

His first hit was a hundred percent predictable. He swung back his right, attempting to hit on her, but she quickly hopped backwards and he missed. She did see the next one, but she didn't see the third hit coming. He hit her hard on her jaw and neck, just where cheek became jaw and ear became neck. It felt like someone had hit her with a chair on the side, she lost her balance, stumbled backwards and fell. When she quickly scrambled to bet up again, her head was spinning, and she had a hard time telling where exactly her opponent was by now. She still tried to get up, and everything turned in front of her eyes, her neck and head  _hurt_ -

“ _Enough!_ ” someone yelled. A pair of supporting hands came up behind her, helping her up. She faintly heard Hazel whisper in her ear, frantically asking if she was alright. Her sight eventually cleared up and the nausea subsided. The crowd in front of them parted and a teacher came into sight. He wore a grass green shirt, she supposed him to be around his late fifties. He pushed a pair of glasses up his nose, bundle of keys in one hand and a bunch of papers in the other. He built up in front of the wall guy, stopping him immediately. He seemed to enjoy quite some respect among the students.

“What happened here?” he demanded and looked to and fro between the three of them, Nash supporting himself against the lockers, the wall guy in front of him still holding his bleeding nose, and Ella, slightly held up by Hazel. When she felt better after a moment, Ella laid a hand on Hazel's arm and pushed herself forwards.

“I helped him.” she said, still a bit breathless, casually pointing a hand towards Nash.

“I don't know what's happened before that.”

“And how, exactly, did you help?” the teacher snapped at her, obviously caffeine-deprived.

“I used appropriate methods...” she mumbled.

“So you call this appropriate?” he raged, pointing at Mr. wall.

“I do.”

There was a moment of expectant silence.

“Me too.” the teacher said, patting her back once and striding over to the wall to scold him and ask what's happened.

The heavens sent this teacher.

Ella caught Nash's gaze, who grinned at her, signing her an “o” with his thumb and index finger. She smiled, half-grinned back.

They were led towards the nurse room. Ella was sat down on a bed with an ice pack to cool the forming bruise below her ear, and Nash sat down next to her, holding an ice pack against the back of his head as well.

They just sat there in silence, until he said:

“You know you got a reputation to keep up now.”, and then just smirked at her.

She smirked back.

“Would be boring otherwise, wouldn't it?”

They skipped the last block together in the infirmary. Ella met up at the front door with Edna and Hazel. The latter handed her the school stuff she had missed over the week and in the last block, smiling wickedly.

“Good hit.” Edna praised.

“Thanks.” Ella replied.

The warm afternoon sun shone down on their backs as they made their way towards the train station.

 

“You _what_?” Clint loudly laughed when she told him, Natasha and Tony what had happened in school.

“Yeah, I kind of... kicked him in the face.” she admitted, fidgeting.

“Just like that? Without warming up, stretching or so, just from where you stood?” he went on asking.

“You could say that.”

“Awesome.” he breathed.

“A bit, yeah.”

At that, Steve stepped into the room.

“What is awesome?” he immediately demanded. Tony leant back, smirking.

“My daughter has made herself a name at school.” he stated, obviously quite content with himself.

“How so?” Steve asked, obviously curious as he strode towards the fridge and took out some yogurt.

“She kicked a guy in the face.” Clint brawled.

Steve's head shot up. “So nowadays you earn your reputation by kicking other people in the face, just like that?” he asked doubtfully.

“No, no, Clint just forgot half of the story,” Ella quickly said, “I, uh, wanted to help someone that guy had pinned against the lockers, so I asked him to let go, but he said he wouldn't, and so I decided to kick... him.”

Her voice faltered at the end before she decided to continue. Steve only blinked at her, but then a smirk spread across his features.

“That's the spirit, I guess.” he said and sat down next to her.

“But I guess he wants revenge. I've got an even bigger problem on monday.” she said, sighing.

“You want me to show you a few moves?” Natasha suddenly offered.

Ella looked at her, processing her words.

“Y-yeah, that'd be great.”

“Natasha, you don't encourage her to become the school thug, do you.” Steve said in a worried tone.

“No, just showing her what she can do if that guy decides to take her on. It's called self-defense.” the assassin said with an innocent smile and stood up.

“I'll meet you in the gym at ten tomorrow, don't be late.” she told Ella and disappeared in the elevator. For a few minutes, there was only the sound of Steve eating his yogurt and Tony aimlessly looking though his phone.

“By the way, Tony?” Ella spoke up.

“Hm?” he said, not looking up.

“Where've you been yesterday?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	17. Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not unrealistic at all. No.

For a moment, nobody said a tone.

“I was... occupied.”

“I see.”

The atmosphere was thick and straining between them. Clint wordlessly got up and left.

“Can we...” she began, but didn't find the words to end her sentence.

“Yeah. We should...” he said, still not looking at her.

“Whenever you're free.”

“I'm on a meeting in D.C. in a few hours so I won't be back till Sunday or Monday, so...”

“No problem. I can wait.”

“Whenever I come back it is then.”

“Alright.”

Tony got up and left as well. It was only her and Steve now.

“You didn't go unscathed for kicking that one guy, did you? I mean, the teachers...?” he asked.

“No.”

They both stared at the wall opposite of them.

“Actually, the supervisor almost flipped and wanted to arrange a meeting with the principal, but I kinda talked myself out of it.” she admitted then.

“You shouldn't do that, really.” the blonde advised.

“I know...” Ella sighed. “But you know... I kinda felt like I should do this because I was scared I would, like, have my status ripped apart and people thinking of me as ignorant if I walked by. Also I knew that guy who was in trouble there.”

“I can understand what you mean. It's not like I never did anything forbidden on order to save a friend.”

She couldn't help but chuckle a little.

“I don't think you could call that 'saving'. I only talked to him once or so.”

“Still. It's not all that bad.”

Smiling to herself, Ella began to fiddle with the hem of her sleeve.

“Wanna come along to the gym?” the super-soldier next to her asked out of the blue.

“Sure.” she replied, grinning.

 

When they arrived, the gym was empty and the air inside was cool and dry. Steve went to the left, put up a punching bag and started to search through a nearby cupboard for something. Ella went through the room, taking everything in. She hopped on the treadmill, running a few meters, tried to lift a few weights but eventually gave up because there were 150 pounds on each side of the bar. She climbed into the ring in the middle, walking around, jumping, pulling at the wires that surrounded it, punching the corners. She went around for a while, trying out, touching stuff, sometimes wondering what they were even supposed to be for. Steve started exercising at some point, and so she sat down in the middle of the ring, watching him. She couldn't help but be a little scared but amazed at the same time by the sheer power that stood behind every single of his punches. After a while, he stopped and turned around.

_ Totally not wearing a white shirt and being sweaty at the same time. That bastard. _ She thought to herself.

“Why so quiet?” he asked.

“Thought I shouldn't disturb you when you're exercising.” she replied quickly, fighting down the warmth in her face.

“Oh, no, don't mind that. I thought we could talk a bit more.”

“Like... about what?”

He returned to destroying the punching bag.

“Think of... something.” he said between two punches.

She just sat there for a while, but then eventually decided that there was no one around and she kind of trusted Steve, so she could pose a few... private questions.

“Do you...” she started, but realized she had to talk louder or Steve wouldn't be able to hear her.

“Do you know what Tony was busy with yesterday evening? I don't want to accuse him of lying or something, but he seemed... kind of not like himself.”

When the other didn't reply at first, she quickly added:

“Uh... you know what I mean, right?”

Steve's movements faltered, his arms dropping to his sides. Her heartbeat was in her throat. Was this _too_ private and specific?

When he spoke, his voice was almost thrumming in her ears. He spoke clear and moderate, but she still was scared she asked for something wrong.

“You should know... or, rather, you probably know that Tony himself is a person with unknown depths. Don't let such things throw you off. He's not perfect, sometimes even despicable. He's a heavy drinker. You shouldn't judge him for that. It isn't right, I know, but don't let him down. He's really trying hard to be something like a dad for you, but I think you can imagine that doesn't work more often than it does.”

All of this shouldn't be that surprising to her. Still Steve's little speech caught her off guard here. She pulled her knees towards her center, slinging her arms around them. She suddenly could feel how cold the room really was, and the atmosphere was suffocating. She herself felt empty and cold, just like a block of ice had been dropped inside her. She couldn't look at Steve, her eyes scrambled for purchase rather than blankly staring in the void, unfocused, they began to trace the pattern of stains and scratches on the ground of the ring.

“I...” she tried, but her throat had closed up and it only came out as a pitiful whisper. The fact that Tony was trying so hard only on her behalf made her want to cry right then and there. But she couldn't. Not here, not now, not in front of Steve.

How could she not notice. How could she not _see._ How could she expect anything. There was no way to begin with for him to be able to handle her, he was a busy man. There was no need for him to act like a father figure for her. She had never had one, and she had been perfectly fine without one. And yet he did, because he maybe thought she expected it.

A familiar voice jumped at her from somewhere in the back of her mind.

“ _You know I'm not as perfect as you may think.”_

“ _I'm a despicable human being. You have to realize that.”_

“ _I'm sorry I can't be what you need anymore.”_

She had done  _nothing_ to deserve this much. She wanted to be six again, when her little world had been whole, when everyone had been fine. When her view had been limited. Where there had been no sorrows.  _Mom..._

_You shouldn't force yourself upon people like that. You're being a burden._

Her head was spinning with everything that came rushing towards her. Guilt, fear, a subconscious  _ craving _ . For what, she didn't know. She tried to push it all away, she was so upset with herself,  _ how could she let this happen with her mind, what was she even thinking- _

“Ella?”

There was a hand on her shoulder. The simple contact did the trick and quickly pulled her back to the here and now.

“Are you alright? Did I say something wrong?”

Steve was next to her now, concern written all over his face.  _For her. No._

She hadn't realized she had been blankly staring at the wall and started crying silently at some point.  _Shit._ She quickly wiped her face dry with her sleeves, desperately trying to hide the fact she had been crying. She staggered to her feet hastily, but that only made her vision black out and she stumbled. Steve caught her in time, but her vision cleared seconds later and she pried his hands off her waist. She hadn't meant to be that rough, but she just couldn't keep her hands from shaking violently.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thaaanks for reading... <3


	18. Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Steve's POV. I'm not good at this kinda stuff... You can give me feedback :)

**(Steve's POV)**

Her hands were cold as ice, and she was shaking so violently he almost wondered how she could even find purchase on his hands. She pried them off as if they were burning hot. He hadn't meant for this to go in this direction. His speech about Tony must've triggered something inside her.

“Hey, Ella, please listen to me!” he tried to calm her down, to no avail. She stumbled towards the wires around the ring, grabbing the highest one like a lifeline in a white-knuckled grip. But she didn't leave. She just stood there, not saying anything, looking at the ground between them, trying to catch her frantic breath.

The hand that wasn't clutching the rim shot up to her hair, viciously carding backwards a strand that had fallen out of her bun.

She finally looked up to him, almost questioning.

“Sorry, Steve, I... I guess I shouldn't have asked in the first place. My fault. I just... Nevermind.”

He took a step towards her, only to have her jump and hold up a hand to make him stop. She averted her gaze again.

“Can I come closer?” he asked carefully.

She only nodded, slowly, it was barely there. He approached, slower this time as to not startle her again. Her hand slowly sank, but he caught it. Rubbing small soothing circles into her palm, he stepped behind her and slowly enveloped her into a hug. She felt fragile and cold in his arms. Her shivering stopped soon and he felt the tension seep out of her muscles almost completely.

“Sorry.” she whispered.

“Nothing to be sorry about. You had every right to ask, and I'm actually not in a place to say that. I didn't mean to scare you. Okay now?”

“Okay. I'm okay.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback? Please?


	19. Walking on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On it goes in Ella's POV!

She smiled at him as she turned around. She was definitely better now, thanks to him.

“Thank you. Really.” she said.

“Anytime.”

“Can I... revenge myself somehow?” she asked, pulling up an eyebrow.

“You want to assist me with something?” he said, already turning around to go again.

“I'd be honored to.”

He walked towards the cupboards again, Ella following him on foot. He handed her a bucket of tennis and baseball balls, telling her to stand near the door. He positioned himself about five meters away from her.

“Just throw the balls. Do whatever you want, you can throw as hard as you can, and you don't necessarily have to aim at me. I'll try to catch then. Got me?”

“Roger, Captain.” she replied, casually hinting a salute.

“Come on.” he demanded, cocking his head.

She placed the bucket next to her on a chair and grabbed two tennis balls.

“Ready?” she asked, “I doubt you'll miss any.”

“We'll see about- _Hey!_ ”

As soon as she had ended her sentence, she already threw the first ball. Steve catched, but with some effort. She didn't pause to listen to him and continued to throw the balls towards him in quick succession. Some were easy, but some were tricky as she turned quite often and did confusing moves. One time, she didn't take a new ball, but instead did a winner pose and yelled “Hah!”.

“What do you- oh, you little...”

She had thrown two balls at once. Steve had catched the quicker one, but she had thrown the second one with her other hand, behind her back and on the height of his knee.

“Really, Ella? I didn't say you should throw two at a time. I just wasn't prepared.”

“You should be. You didn't say I couldn't.”

“You are so Tony's offspring.”

“I know, right?”

He just shook his head.

“You wanna try too?” he offered.

“Sure,” she chirped, “but go easy on me. Beware, I'm not genetically enhanced, I'm a normal sixteen-year-old girl.”

She stood right where Steve had been standing, who started to throw one ball after another. She cursed a few times when she missed or the balls slipped through her fingers, but she was quick to catch on.

“You're good.” Steve commented when the bucket was empty and the balls were lying all over the floor where Ella had just dropped them most of the time.

“Hm. I think it was okay.”

“Really, it's not that bad for the first time.”

When they were done collecting everything into the bucket again, Ella stopped and looked at the super-soldier in front of her.

“Look... I... it'd be great if you didn't tell anyone how I flipped previously.”

Steve just looked at her featureless before answering her request.

“I promise I won't. But why?”

“It's embarrassing.” she whispered, barely audible.

“You know you don't have to be ashamed. Everyone has their weaknesses.”

“I know, but still... I just... I don't want the others to know. I hadn't intended for you to see either. Sorry if I burdened you.”

“Stop right there.” he quickly interfered, putting a hand on her shoulder and thus forcing her to look up. “I'm glad I was able to help you. That's my job after all. And I won't tell anyone. Okay?”

Only thing she could do at that moment was smile a bit dumbly.

“Thank you.”

 

When she came back to the living room, there was only Natasha on the couch, silently flipping through a russian magazine. Ella realized she couldn't even read the name of the literature at hand, again. Steve had stayed in the gym to exercise a bit more. Ella plopped down next to Nat and peered into the magazine to look at the pictures. They obviously were of celebrities, but the brunette didn't know any of them.

“What is this about?” she asked the assassin next to her.

“This?” Natasha asked back and pointed at the first picture on the double page.

“All of them.”

“This here is a russian singer. He's married his girlfriend. And this is a singer too, except he's got issues with drugs. They're all like that.”

“You like that stuff?”

“...yeah.”

“Not really my thing, but read what you want.”

She just sat next to Natasha like that, leaning on her shoulder. It was nice. She was the only other woman except her and Pepper in this household. And both Nat and Pepper were badass in their own ways. _One day..._

 

~

 

She was fucking done. Cooling her sweaty head on the kitchen counter, she looked at Natasha who sat next to her eating. She had encountered the brute from friday in school today. He had been  _pissed_ at her, but the supervisors had been able to stop him before she would've been forced to use some of the moves Natasha had shown her last weekend. The thing still wasn't settled. She could sense the guy wouldn't keep still until one of them was on the ground. While he was sure it would be her, she desperately hoped it would be him.

On top of that, there had been the first test today. She felt like she did good, but she couldn't help but feel uncertain about it since she only learned the topic from the stuff Hazel had handed her. Edna had brought her along to her hip-hop lessons. The instructor, a young guy, wasn't all that bad in the end. He wasn't strict but rather casual about rules and moves and such, but he wanted them to be one hundred percent engaged in what they did.

In short: It was monday, and Ella already wanted the weekend back.

 

She sat up as Natasha silently pushed a glass of juice towards her on the counter. She appreciated the gesture and drank.

The sound of heels clicking against expensive concrete told them Pepper was back, and with her Tony. Pepper approached them like a normal person, but Tony strode into the room as though he owned it. Well, he did.

He gave Natasha an approving nod and kissed Pepper on the cheek as he started himself a coffe. Ella received a quick hug, a hand messing up her hair and a “don't forget our appointment, hun, I'll meet you down in my lab in ten” before Tony smugly walked off to said lab with a shit-eating grin and a cup of coffee.

Pepper rolled her eyes before she plopped down opposite of the two females already sitting there. Ella only smiled, half to herself, half to Pepper.

“Boy,” Pepper sighed, “Tony is one exhausting man.”

Natasha only did her smirk-and-eyebrow-thing while Ella leant on the counter with both elbows and replied: “Who are you even telling that.”

They just sat there in silence for a moment before Ella suddenly said:

“I just realized that if Pepper and Tony married that would technically make her my stepmother.”

Pepper just looked at her in slight confusion, however Ella still looked at the table.

“Whoa.” she said.

“Interesting thought.” Nat said with that smirk of her.

“I'd let that be.” Pepper commented.

“Don't want me as your stepdaughter?” Ella asked mockingly, wiggling her eyebrows and shuffling to and fro on her chair.

They dismissed the topic.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3


	20. Loving Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go read, enjoy! Also, should I update the tags? I'll have to look into that...probably...

After a while, Ella simply noted: “I'm meeting up with Tony.” and left. On her way down to the lab she passed Bruce, both gave a polite wink.

Once she stood in front of the lab, she didn't really know how to enter. Knock? Just open the door? Ask Jarvis?

She decided to just knock shortly. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the door swung open by a few inches with a light mechanical hiss. She pressed it open, entering. The lab was quite messy, but still seemed like there was some kind of order to this chaos. The room was dimly lit with white and green light. Microscopes here and there, a lot of papers and monitors, a few holograms floating around. It was a lot like Bruce's, but then again this had something that clearly said Tony. She decided it was the Che-Guevara-style Iron Man fanart on the wall.

Tony immediately looked up from where he was hunched over a tablet with a few papers in one hand. He dropped both on a nearby table and stood up.

“Hey dear. It's good to see you.” he greeted her. His voice was a lot softer than usual, and she found herself really enjoying it. When Tony was calm, silent, thoughtful. Not flashy and loud like the other times. When he hugged her with one arm and pressed his nose into her temple, she felt like her exhausting day was long in the past. They were both in peace with each other and with themselves.

They both sat down on comfy chairs in a free space between two tables. Ella pulled her feet up on the seat of the chair to get comfortable. Tony made a hologram in front of them close and instead opened a large window, so long that when they would both extend their arms, each would be able to reach the other's hand and an end of the window.

Tony showed her around, mostly what the controls worked like. He pulled up a browser window, sorted a few shopping websites into tabs, clicked here and there. Ella watched, amazed by the way he maneuvered through the system, the speed, the grace. It was only now that she really noticed the blue light on his chest that tinted his arms and face in a cool blue glow. She had known it was there, and she had seen it already in the last few weeks, but it was only now that she really  _saw_ it. She heard him talking, took every single word in, but couldn't help but stare at the triangle in his chest whenever she didn't have to look at what he was doing.

When he noticed, his arms slowed down and then sank to his sides.

“What's up?” he asked.

Her eyes snapped up to his face immediately.

“I, um, sorry, I didn't mean to stare...”

“No, it's alright. You can look, but try not to stare at it constantly. Makes me uncomfortable, you know.”

“Sorry, it's just, I've never seen anything like that before...”

He smirked.  
“Most people haven't. There's nothing like it in the world.”

They exchanged a look, but then Tony shoved a window towards her.

“Just look for something you like.” he instructed her, “Put in the cart whatever you want. I think I'll have a look at it then.”

She hesitated for a moment, right hand in the air.

“You sure? I mean, you don't have to-”

“You told me already, remember? I'm the richest man in the world, I think I can afford a random bunch of clothes.”

“Well then...”

They sat next to each other, browsing through pages over pages. Tony sometimes just watched Ella, but other times he scrolled around himself, occasionally offering her a shirt or asking her for her opinion. It didn't take Ella all too long to find a compartment of a site that was bursting with tights. Black ones, gray, white, any color of the rainbow, with dots, stripes, patterns, prints. She mentally declared it her personal paradise. The exact second she found tights with comic prints, she purchased one in each color pattern, she would wear tights everywhere she went if she could. The moment she discovered they even had Iron Man and Captain America (any Avenger really) and Avengers tights, she couldn't help but squeal. When Tony raised an eyebrow at her, she gave a both innocent and shit-eating grin, flipped them all into the cart with one hand and continued her tours with a positively smug expression in her face.

Far into the evening, Tony eventually pulled up a random Disney movie. They leaned into each other, quickly dozing off.

She felt so grateful for everything that had been given to her these weeks. With her head on Tony's shoulder and her temple in his neck, she slowly inhaled the by now almost familiar scent of metal, expensive cologne, burning wood and a bit of grease. She tried to memorize it, as if she was scared everything could be ripped from her at any given time. But sitting there like that, she, for once, felt at peace with what happened around her. She hadn't forgotten it, it just all seemed like it was not her own life, but rather another person's. Like from a distance. With the warmth and the slightest shimmer of blue next to her, she fell asleep.

 

Who the fuck installed that fucking obnoxious ringtone?

_Oh right. I distinctly remember it was me._

She didn't open her eyes yet, but rather recalled last evening with Tony. It had been wonderful. Quiet and relaxed. She assumed Tony or even Steve had carried her to her own bed at some point. Waking up in this giant bed every morning by new was an incredible thing, but it carried the risk of her just not wanting to leave that cozy place.

She had to, eventually.

She dressed and got ready, had breakfast with Natasha like almost every morning. It had become sort of a routine until now. Natasha never ditched their meal together, the only time she hadn't been there when she had been on an urgent mission.

Ella was catching up what she had missed in the last week in school, but the teachers quickly stomped through the topics while constantly preaching about the exam phase that would be starting by November. School wasn't difficult, but it was a hella lot to do.

During the stretching in the afternoon at the ballet lessons, Edna turned her head towards Ella and whispered:

“Hey, Ella, d'you know with which coefficient the power in- AGH-”

As soon as Ms. Trevino had caught up on them chatting, she had quickly strode over and slapped Edna on the back of the head with the booklet she had held for the whole lesson so far.

“Shut it or you can join Clarice in the corner with standing in plié for ten minutes.”

Edna instantly clapped her mouth shut but not without rolling her eyes first. She received another slap on the back of her head and a hissed “you can do it on your tiptoes too if you insist”.

When they were back in the changing rooms, Hazel informed Ella that there would be a show by christmas.

“That's why she is pushing us so hard. She wants our group to be the best, like every year. I think it's understandable.” she explained.

“You don't have to worry,” Edna snapped at her, “you're gonna get the first role anyway. I'm not dancing for this group this year, I swear. I'm only gonna get a place in the last row again. I'm gonna enlist for the hip hop festival. That's on the same day, so I'm definitely out of it.”.

“Edna, don't be childish-”

“Don't even. Just don't. I'm leaving ballet this year anyway, say what you want. I'm switching to four lessons of hip hop per week. I'm gonna join New York's leading street dance group by then, thank you very much. I'm not cut out for this, unlike you. You shouldn't try to plan other people's lifes for them like that, everyone has their own plans. Try to respect that, got me?”

Edna had slightly raised her voice at the end, and now she quickly stuffed her remaining stuff in her bag, got up and left, making a point in closing the door harder than it would have been necessary. The others had started to look at them, but now went on with their issues again.

Hazel honestly looked shocked. She stood there, staring at the door. She swallowed hard, once, twice, trying hard to keep her usual composure. Ella could see that by the way her hands trembled. Hazel sat down on the bench eventually, only taking a deep breath, mumbling something about: “Well, someone's pissed that they never get anything but last row” and then left too. Ella was left to slowly stuff her clothes and shoes back in her bag, taking the train back to the tower alone.

 

“Rough day?” Clint asked when she stepped out of the elevator. She only looked at him for a moment, but then sighed and said:

“You could say that.”

“Wanna blow off a little steam?”

“No, thank you, I'm done for today.” she replied with a tired smile before retiring to her room, indulging herself in homework.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this far! :)
> 
> Now tell me if you want to hear more! I've already written the next few chapters in advance, so I can upload them relatively fast :)


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